Opponent: Mission San Jose | Judge: Derek Hilligoss
1ACLeasing ac NCLegal Trust CP Subset CP Astroid Mining Link Turn
Harvard Westlake
2
Opponent: Harker NA | Judge: Julian Kuffour
1AC China-Russia plan NC Treaty CP Russia fill in DA
Harvard Westlake
5
Opponent: Harker KB | Judge: Joshua Micheal
Space AC Russia China NC
Hollywood Invitational
2
Opponent: Harvard Westlake AW | Judge: David Dosch
Aff Econ Inequality Neg Postwork K
Hollywood Invitational
4
Opponent: Harker DV | Judge: Leah Clark-Villanueva
AFF EU
NEG Postwork K
Jack Howe
2
Opponent: Peninsula EL | Judge: Saketh Kotapati
1AC Covid Imperialism NC COVID Fund CP Innovation DA
Jacke Howe
3
Opponent: Stockdale RP | Judge: Asher Towner
AC COVID AFF NC Health fund cp innovation da
Jacke Howe
5
Opponent: Loyola SG | Judge: Rao Abhishek
AC COVID AFF NC Health fun cp innovation DA
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Cites
Entry
Date
HH NC - Rd 5
Tournament: Jacke Howe | Round: 5 | Opponent: Loyola SG | Judge: Rao Abhishek Health Fund Counterplan: High-income country governments, backed by the United States, should provide all necessary funding to purchase COVID-19 vaccines developed by drug companies at any reasonable cost and distribute them as requested world-wide. Lindsay 6/11 - Brink Lindsay, Brookings, 6-11, 2021, Why intellectual property and pandemics don’t mix, https://www.brookings.edu/blog/up-front/2021/06/03/why-intellectual-property-and-pandemics-dont-mix/ Waiving patent protections is certainly no panacea. What is needed most urgently is a massive drive of technology transfer, capacity expansion, and supply line coordination to bring vaccine supply in line with global demand. Dispensing with patents in no way obviates the need for governments to fund and oversee this effort.¶ Although focusing on these immediate constraints is vital, we cannot confine our attention to the short term. First of all, the COVID-19 pandemic is far from over. Although Americans can now see the light at the end of the tunnel thanks to the rapid rollout of vaccines, most of the world isn’t so lucky. The virus is¶ currently raging in India and throughout South America, overwhelming health care systems and inflicting suffering and loss on a horrific scale. And consider the fact that Australia, which has been successful in suppressing the virus, recently announced it was sticking to plans to keep its borders closed until mid-2022. Criticisms of the TRIPS waiver that focus only on the next few months are therefore short-sighted: this pandemic could well drag on long enough for elimination of patent restrictions to enable new vaccine producers to make a positive difference.¶ Furthermore, and probably even more important, this is almost certainly not the last pandemic we will face. Urbanization, the spread of factory-farming methods, and globalization all combine to increase the odds that a new virus will make the jump from animals to humans and then spread rapidly around the world. Prior to the current pandemic, the 21st century already saw outbreaks of SARS, H1N1, MERS, and Ebola. Everything we do and learn in the current crisis should be viewed from the perspective of getting ready for next time.¶ The Nature of the Patent Bargain¶ When we take the longer view, we can see a fundamental mismatch between the policy design of intellectual property protection and the policy requirements of effective pandemic response. Although patent law, properly restrained, constitutes one important element of a well-designed national innovation system, the way it goes about encouraging technological progress is singularly ill-suited to the emergency conditions of a pandemic or other public health crisis. Securing a TRIPS waiver for COVID-19 vaccines and treatments would thus establish a salutary precedent that, in emergencies of this kind, governments should employ other, more direct means to incentivize the development of new drugs.¶ Here is the basic bargain offered by patent law: encourage the creation of useful new ideas for the long run by slowing the diffusion of useful new ideas in the short run. The second half of the bargain, the half that imposes costs on society, comes from the temporary exclusive rights, or monopoly privileges, that a patent holder enjoys. Under U.S. patent law, for a period of 20 years nobody else can manufacture or sell the patented product without the permission of the patent holder. This allows the patent holder to block competitors from the market, or extract licensing fees before allowing them to enter, and consequently charge above-market prices to its customers. Patent rights thus slow the diffusion of a new invention by restricting output and raising prices.¶ The imposition of these short-run costs, however, can bring net long-term benefits by sharpening the incentives to invent new products. In the absence of patent protection, the prospect of easy imitation by later market entrants can deter would-be innovators from incurring the up-front fixed costs of research and development. But with a guaranteed period of market exclusivity, inventors can proceed with greater confidence that they will be able to recoup their investment.¶ For the tradeoff between costs and benefits to come out positive on net, patent law must strike the right balance. Exclusive rights should be valuable enough to encourage greater innovation, but not so easily granted or extensive in scope or term that this encouragement is outweighed by output restrictions on the patented product and discouragement of downstream innovations dependent on access to the patented technology.¶ Unfortunately, the U.S. patent system at present is out of balance. Over the past few decades, the expansion of patentability to include software and business methods as well as a general relaxation of patenting requirements have led to wildly excessive growth in these temporary monopolies: the number of patents granted annually has¶ skyrocketed roughly fivefold since the early 1980s. One unfortunate result has been the rise of “non-practicing entities,” better known as patent trolls: firms that make nothing themselves but buy up patent portfolios and monetize them through aggressive litigation. As a result, a law that is supposed to encourage innovation has turned into a¶ legal minefield for many would-be innovators. In the pharmaceutical industry, firms have abused the law by piling up patents for trivial, therapeutically irrelevant “innovations” that allow them to¶ extend their monopolies and keep raising prices long beyond the statutorily contemplated 20 years.¶ Patent law is creating these unintended consequences because policymakers have been caught in an ideological fog that¶ conflates “intellectual property” with actual property rights over physical objects. Enveloped in that fog, they regard any attempts to put limits on patent monopolies as attacks on private property and view ongoing expansions of patent privileges as necessary to keep innovation from grinding to a halt. In fact, patent law is a tool of regulatory policy with the usual tradeoffs between costs and benefits; like all tools, it can be misused, and as with all tools there are some jobs for which other tools are better suited. A well-designed patent system, in which benefits are maximized and costs kept to a minimum, is just one of various policy options that governments can employ to stimulate technological advance—including tax credits for RandD, prizes for targeted inventions, and direct government support.¶ Public Health Emergencies and Direct Government Support¶ For pandemics and other public health emergencies, patents’ mix of costs and benefits is misaligned with what is needed for an effective policy response. The basic patent bargain, even when well struck, is to pay for more innovation down the road with slower diffusion of innovation today. In the context of a pandemic, that bargain is a bad one and should be rejected entirely. Here the imperative is to accelerate the diffusion of vaccines and other treatments, not slow it down. Giving drug companies the power to hold things up by blocking competitors and raising prices pushes in the completely wrong direction. What approach to encouraging innovation should we take instead? How do we incentivize drug makers to undertake the hefty RandD costs to develop new vaccines without giving them exclusive rights over their production and sale? The most effective approach during a public health crisis is direct government support: public funding of RandD, advance purchase commitments by the government to buy large numbers of doses at set prices, and other, related payouts. And when we pay drug makers, we should not hesitate to pay generously, even extravagantly: we want to offer drug companies big profits so that they prioritize this work above everything else, and so that they are ready and eager to come to the rescue again the next time there’s a crisis. It was direct support via Operation Warp Speed that made possible the astonishingly rapid development of COVID-19 vaccines and then facilitated a relatively rapid rollout of vaccine distribution (relative, that is, to most of the rest of the world). And it’s worth noting that a major reason for the faster rollout here and in the United Kingdom compared to the European Union was the latter’s misguided penny-pinching. The EU bargained hard with firms to keep vaccine prices low, and as a result their citizens ended up in the back of the queue as various supply line kinks were being ironed out. This is particularly ironic since the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine was developed in Germany. As this fact underscores, the chief advantage of direct support isn’t to “get tough” with drug firms and keep a lid on their profits. Instead, it is to accelerate the end of the public health emergency by making sure drug makers profit handsomely from doing the right thing. Patent law and direct support should be seen not as either-or alternatives but as complements that apply different incentives to different circumstances and time horizons. Patent law provides a decentralized system for encouraging innovation. The government doesn’t presume to tell the industry which new drugs are needed; it simply incentivizes the development of whatever new drugs that pharmaceutical firms can come up with by offering them a temporary monopoly. It is important to note that patent law’s incentives offer no commercial guarantees. Yes, you can block other competitors for a number of years, but that still doesn’t ensure enough consumer demand for the new product to make it profitable. The situation is different in a pandemic. Here the government knows exactly what it wants to incentivize: the creation of vaccines to prevent the spread of a specific virus and other drugs to treat that virus. Under these circumstances, the decentralized approach isn’t good enough. There is no time to sit back and let drug makers take the initiative on their own timeline. Instead, the government needs to be more involved to incentivize specific innovations now. As recompense for letting it call the shots (pardon the pun), the government sweetens the deal for drug companies by insulating them from commercial risk. If pharmaceutical firms develop effective vaccines and therapies, the government will buy large, predetermined quantities at prices set high enough to guarantee a healthy return. For the pharmaceutical industry, it is useful to conceive of patent law as the default regime for innovation promotion. It improves pharmaceutical companies’ incentives to develop new drugs while leaving them free to decide which new drugs to pursue – and also leaving them to bear all commercial risk. In a pandemic or other emergency, however, it is appropriate to shift to the direct support regime, in which the government focuses efforts on one disease. In this regime, it is important to note, the government provides qualitatively superior incentives to those offered under patent law. Not only does it offer public funding to cover the up-front costs of drug development, but it also provides advance purchase commitments that guarantee a healthy return. It should therefore be clear that the pharmaceutical industry has no legitimate basis for objecting to a TRIPS waiver. Since, because of the public health crisis, drug makers now qualify for the superior benefits of direct government support, they no longer need the default benefits of patent support. Arguments that a TRIPS waiver would deprive drug makers of the incentives they need to keep developing new drugs, when they are presently receiving the most favorable incentives available, can be dismissed as the worst sort of special pleading. That said, it is a serious mistake to try to cast the current crisis as a morality play in which drug makers wear the black hats and the choice at hand is between private profits and public health. We would have no chance of beating this virus without the formidable organizational capabilities of the pharmaceutical industry, and providing the appropriate incentives is essential to ensure that the industry plays its necessary and vital role. It is misguided to lament that private companies are profiting in the current crisis: those profits are a drop in the bucket compared to the staggering cost of this pandemic in lives and economic damage. What matters isn’t the existence or size of the profits, but how they are earned. We have good reason to want drug makers to profit from vaccinating the world: the comparative price is minuscule, and the incentive effects are a vital safeguard of public health in the event of future crises. What we want to avoid at all costs is putting drug makers in the position where drug companies can profit from standing in the way of rapid global vaccination. That is why intellectual property rights need to be taken out of the equation. Vaccinating the world in any kind of reasonable time frame will require large-scale technology transfer to drug firms in other countries and rapid expansion of their production capacity. And looking beyond the current pandemic to the longer term, we need ample, redundant global vaccine production capacity that is widely distributed around the planet. To achieve these goals as rapidly as possible will require the active cooperation of the U.S. pharmaceutical industry, which is why the direct support model now needs to be extended. What is needed now is an Operation Warp Speed for the world, in which we make it worth current vaccine producers’ while to share their know-how broadly and ramp up global capacity. Here again, we must recognize that the choice isn’t between people on the one hand and profits on the other. Rather, the key to good pandemic response policy is ensuring that incentives are structured so that drug company profit-seeking and global public health are well aligned. That means opting out of the default, decentralized patent bargain in favor of generous but well-focused direct government support. Innovation DA The pharma industry is strong now but patents are key for continued economic growth. Batell and PhRMA 14: Batell and PhRMA {Battelle is the world’s largest nonprofit independent research and development organization, providing innovative solutions to the world’s most pressing needs through its four global businesses: Laboratory Management, National Security, Energy, Environment and Material Sciences, and Health and Life Sciences. The Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA) represents the country’s leading pharmaceutical research and biotechnology companies, which are devoted to inventing medicines that allow patients to live longer, healthier, and more productive lives.}, 14 – “The U.S. Biopharmaceutical Industry: Perspectives on Future Growth and The Factors That Will Drive It,” http://phrma-docs.phrma.org/sites/default/files/pdf/2014-economic-futures-report.pdf//marlborough-wr// Compared to other capital-intensive, advanced manufacturing industries in the U.S., the biopharmaceutical industry is a leader in RandD investment, IP generation, venture capital investment, and RandD employment. Policies and infrastructure that helped foster these innovative activities have allowed the U.S. to seize global leadership in biopharmaceutical RandD over the past 30 years. However, as this report details, other countries are seeking to compete with the U.S. by borrowing and building upon some of these pro-innovation policies to improve their own operating environment and become more favorable to biopharmaceutical companies making decisions about where to locate their RandD and manufacturing activities. A unique contribution of this report was the inclusion of the perspective of senior-level strategic planning executives of biopharmaceutical companies regarding what policy areas they see as most likely to impact the favorability of the U.S. business operating environment. The executives cited the following factors as having the most impact on the favorability of the operating environment and hence, potential growth of the innovative biopharmaceutical industry in the U.S.: • Coverage and payment policies that support and encourage medical innovation • A well-functioning, science-based regulatory system • Strong IP protection and enforcement in the U.S. and abroad The top sub-attribute identified as driving future biopharmaceutical industry growth in the U.S. cited by executives was a domestic IP system that provides adequate patent rights and data protection. Collectively, these factors underscore the need to reduce uncertainties and ensure adequate incentives for the lengthy, costly, and risky RandD investments necessary to develop new treatments needed by patients and society to address our most costly and challenging diseases. With more than 300,000 jobs at stake between the two scenarios, the continued growth and leadership of the U.S. innovative biopharmaceutical industry cannot be taken for granted. Continued innovation is fundamental to U.S. economic well-being and the nation’s ability to compete effectively in a globalized economy and to take advantage of the expected growth in demand for new medicines around the world. Just as other countries have drawn lessons from the growth of the U.S. biopharmaceutical sector, the U.S. needs to assess how it can improve the environment for innovation and continue to boost job creation by increasing RandD investment, fostering a robust talent pool, enhancing economic growth and sustainability, and continuing to bring new medicines to patients. COVID has kept patents and innovation strong, but continued protection is key to innovation by incentivizing biomedical research – it’s also crucial to preventing counterfeit medicines, economic collapse, and fatal diseases, which independently turns case. Macdole and Ezell 4-29: Jaci Mcdole and Stephen Ezell {Jaci McDole is a senior policy analyst covering intellectual property (IP) and innovation policy at the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation (ITIF). She focuses on IP and its correlations to global innovation and trade. McDole holds a double BA in Music Business and Radio-Television with a minor in Marketing, an MS in Education, and a JD with a specialization in intellectual property (Southern Illinois University Carbondale). McDole comes to ITIF from the Institute for Intellectual Property Research, an organization she co-founded to study and further robust global IP policies. Stephen Ezell is vice president, global innovation policy, at the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation (ITIF). He comes to ITIF from Peer Insight, an innovation research and consulting firm he cofounded in 2003 to study the practice of innovation in service industries. At Peer Insight, Ezell led the Global Service Innovation Consortium, published multiple research papers on service innovation, and researched national service innovation policies being implemented by governments worldwide. Prior to forming Peer Insight, Ezell worked in the New Service Development group at the NASDAQ Stock Market, where he spearheaded the creation of the NASDAQ Market Intelligence Desk and the NASDAQ Corporate Services Network, services for NASDAQ-listed corporations. Previously, Ezell cofounded two successful innovation ventures, the high-tech services firm Brivo Systems and Lynx Capital, a boutique investment bank. Ezell holds a B.S. from the School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University, with an honors certificate from Georgetown’s Landegger International Business Diplomacy program.}, 21 - ("Ten Ways Ip Has Enabled Innovations That Have Helped Sustain The World Through The Pandemic," Information Technology and Innovation Foundation, 4-29-2021, https://itif.org/publications/2021/04/29/ten-ways-ip-has-enabled-innovations-have-helped-sustain-world-through)//marlborough-wr/ To better understand the role of IP in enabling solutions related to COVID-19 challenges, this report relies on 10 case studies drawn from a variety of nations, technical fields, and firm sizes. This is but a handful of the thousands of IP-enabled innovations that have sprung forth over the past year in an effort to meet the tremendous challenges brought on by COVID-19 globally. From a paramedic in Mexico to a veteran vaccine manufacturing company in India and a tech start-up in Estonia to a U.S.-based company offering workplace Internet of Things (IoT) services, small and large organizations alike are working to combat the pandemic. Some have adapted existing innovations, while others have developed novel solutions. All are working to take the world out of the pandemic and into the future. The case studies are: Bharat Biotech: Covaxin Gilead: Remdesivir LumiraDX: SARS-COV-2 Antigen POC Test Teal Bio: Teal Bio Respirator XE Ingeniería Médica: CápsulaXE Surgical Theater: Precision VR Tombot: Jennie Starship Technologies: Autonomous Delivery Robots Triax Technologies: Proximity Trace Zoom: Video Conferencing As the case studies show, IP is critical to enabling innovation. Policymakers around the world need to ensure robust IP protections are—and remain—in place if they wish their citizens to have safe and innovative solutions to health care, workplace, and societal challenges in the future. THE ROLE OF INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY IN RandD-INTENSIVE INDUSTRIES Intangible assets, such as IP rights, comprised approximately 84 percent of the corporate value of SandP 500 companies in 2018.4 For start-ups, this means much of the capital needed to operate is directly related to IP (see Teal Bio case study for more on this). IP also plays an especially important role for RandD-intensive industries.5 To take the example of the biopharmaceutical industry, it is characterized by high-risk, time-consuming, and expensive processes including basic research, drug discovery, pre-clinical trials, three stages of human clinical trials, regulatory review, and post-approval research and safety monitoring. The drug development process spans an average of 11.5 to 15 years.6 For every 5,000 to 10,000 compounds screened on average during the basic research and drug discovery phases, approximately 250 molecular compounds, or 2.5 to 5 percent, make it to preclinical testing. Out of those 250 molecular compounds, approximately 5 make it to clinical testing. That is, 0.05 to 0.1 percent of drugs make it from basic research into clinical trials. Of those rare few which make it to clinical testing, less than 12 percent are ultimately approved for use by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA).7 In addition to high risks, drug development is costly, and the expenses associated with it are increasing. A 2019 report by the Deloitte Center for Health Solutions concluded that since 2010 the average cost of bringing a new drug to market increased by 67 percent.8 Numerous studies have examined the substantial cost of biopharmaceutical RandD, and most confirm investing in new drug development requires $1.7 billion to $3.2 billion up front on average.9 A 2018 study by the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness found similar risks and figures for vaccines, stating, “In general, vaccine development from discovery to licensure can cost billions of dollars, can take over 10 years to complete, and has an average 94 percent chance of failure.”10 Yet, a 2010 study found that 80 percent of new drugs—that is, the less than 12 percent ultimately approved by the FDA—made less than their capitalized RandD costs.11 Another study found that only 1 percent (maybe three new drugs each year) of the most successful 10 percent of FDA approved drugs generate half of the profits of the entire drug industry.12 To say the least, biopharmaceutical RandD represents a high-stakes, long-term endeavor with precarious returns. Without IP protection, biopharmaceutical manufacturers have little incentive to take the risks necessary to engage in the RandD process because they would be unable to recoup even a fraction of the costs incurred. Diminished revenues also result in reduced investments in RandD which means less research into cancer drugs, Alzheimer cures, vaccines, and more. IP rights give life-sciences enterprises the confidence needed to undertake the difficult, risky, and expensive process of life-sciences innovation secure in the knowledge they can capture a share of the gains from their innovations, which is indispensable not only to recouping the up-front RandD costs of a given drug, but which can generate sufficient profits to enable investment in future generations of biomedical innovation and thus perpetuate the enterprises into the future.13 THE IMPORTANCE OF INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY TO INNOVATION Although anti-IP proponents have attacked biopharmaceutical manufacturers particularly hard, the reality is all IP-protected innovations are at risk if these rights are ignored, or vitiated. Certain arguments have shown a desire for the term “COVID-19 innovations” to include everything from vaccines, therapeutics, diagnostics, and PPE to biotechnology, AI-related data, and educational materials.14 This could potentially open the floodgates to invalidate IP protection on many of the innovations highlighted in this report. However, much of the current discussion concerning IP focuses almost entirely on litigation fears or RandD incentives. Although RandD is an important aspect of IP, as previously mentioned, these discussions ignore the fact that IP protection can be—and often is—used for other purposes, including generating initial capital to create a company and begin manufacturing and, more importantly, using licensing agreements and IP to track the supply chain and ensure quality control of products. This report highlights but a handful of the thousands of IP-enabled innovations that have sprung forth over the past year in an effort to meet the tremendous challenges brought on by COVID-19 globally. In 2018, Forbes identified counterfeiting as the largest criminal enterprise in the world.15 The global struggle against counterfeit and non-regulated products, which has hit Latin America particularly hard during the pandemic, proves the need for safety and quality assurance in supply chains.16 Some communities already ravaged by COVID-19 are seeing higher mortality rates related to counterfeit vaccines, therapeutics, PPE, and cleaning and sanitizing products.17 Polish authorities discovered vials of antiwrinkle treatment labeled as COVID-19 vaccines. 18 In Mexico, fake vaccines sold for approximately $1,000 per dose.19 Chinese and South African police seized thousands of counterfeit vaccine doses from warehouses and manufacturing plants.20 Meanwhile, dozens of websites worldwide claiming to sell vaccines or be affiliated with vaccine manufacturers have been taken down.21 But the problem is not limited to biopharmaceuticals. The National Intellectual Property Rights Coordination Center has recovered $48 million worth of counterfeit PPE and other products.22 Collaborative efforts between law enforcement and manufacturers have kept numerous counterfeits from reaching the population. In countries with strong IP protection, the chances of counterfeit products reaching the market are significantly lower. This is largely because counterfeiting tends to be an IP-related issue, and these countries generally provide superior means of tracking the supply chain through trademarks, trade secrets, and licensing agreements. This enables greater quality control and helps manufacturers maintain a level of public confidence in their products. By controlling the flow of knowledge associated with IP, voluntary licensing agreements provide innovators with opportunities to collaborate, while ensuring their partners are properly equipped and capable of producing quality products. Throughout this difficult time, the world has seen unexpected collaborations, especially between biopharmaceutical companies worldwide such as Gilead and Eva Pharma or Bharat Biotech and Ocugen, Inc. Throughout history, and most significantly in the nineteenth century through the widespread development of patent systems and the ensuing Industrial Revolution, IP has contributed toward greater economic growth.23 This is promising news as the world struggles for economic recovery. A 2021 joint study by the EU Intellectual Property Office (EUIPO) and European Patent Office (EPO) shows a strong, positive correlation between IP rights and economic performance.24 It states that “IP-owning firms represent a significantly larger proportion of economic activity and employment across Europe,” with IP-intensive industries contributing to 45 percent of gross domestic product (GDP) (€6.6 trillion; US$7.9 trillion).25 The study also shows 38.9 percent of employment is directly or indirectly attributed to IP-intensive industries, and IP generates higher wages and greater revenue per employee, especially for small-to-medium-sized enterprises.26 That concords with the United States, where the Department of Commerce estimated that IP-intensive industries support at least 45 million jobs and contribute more than $6 trillion dollars to, or 38.2 percent of, GDP.27 In 2020, global patent filings through the World Intellectual Property Organization’s (WIPO) Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT) system reached a record 275,900 filings amidst the pandemic, growing 4 percent from 2019.28 The top-four nations, which accounted for 180,530 of the patent applications, were China, the United States, Japan, and Korea, respectively.29 While several countries saw an increase in patent filings, Saudi Arabia and Malaysia both saw significant increases in the number of annual applications, with the top two filing growths of 73 percent and 26 percent, respectively.30 The COVID-19 pandemic slowed a lot of things, but it certainly couldn’t stop innovation. There are at least five principal benefits strong IP rights can generate, for both developing and developed countries alike.31 First, stronger IP protection spurs the virtuous cycle of innovation by increasing the appropriability of returns, enabling economic gain and catalyzing economic growth. Second, through patents—which require innovators to disclose certain knowledge as a condition of protection—knowledge spillovers build a platform of knowledge that enables other innovators. For instance, studies have found that the rate of return to society from corporate RandD and innovation activities is at least twice the estimated returns that each company itself receives.32 Third, countries with robust IP can operate more efficiently and productively by using IP to determine product quality and reduce transaction costs. Fourth, trade and foreign direct investment enabled and encouraged by strong IP protection offered to enterprises from foreign countries facilitates an accumulation of knowledge capital within the destination economy. That matters when foreign sources of technology account for over 90 percent of productivity growth in most countries.33 There’s also evidence suggesting that developing nations with stronger IP protections enjoy the earlier introduction of innovative new medicines.34 And fifth, strong IP boosts exports, including in developing countries.35 Research shows a positive correlation between stronger IP protection and exports from developing countries as well as faster growth rates of certain industries.36 The following case studies illustrate these benefits of IP and how they’ve enabled innovative solutions to help global society navigate the COVID-19 pandemic. This sets a precedent that spills over to all future diseases – Hopkins 21: Jared S. Hopkins {Jared S. Hopkins is a New York-based reporter for The Wall Street Journal covering the pharmaceutical industry, including companies such as Pfizer Inc. and Merck and Co. He previously was a health-care reporter at Bloomberg News and an investigative reporter at the Chicago Tribune. Jared started his career at The Times-News in Twin Falls, Idaho covering politics. In 2014, he was a finalist for the Livingston Award For Young Journalists for an investigation into charities founded by professional athletes. In 2011, he was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in Investigative Reporting for a series about neglect at a residential facility for disabled kids. Jared graduated from the Merrill College of Journalism at the University of Maryland-College Park with a bachelor's degree in journalism}, 21 - ("U.S. Support for Patent Waiver Unlikely to Cost Covid-19 Vaccine Makers in Short Term ," WSJ, 5-7-2021, https://www.wsj.com/articles/u-s-support-for-patent-waiver-unlikely-to-cost-covid-19-vaccine-makers-in-short-term-11620414260)//marlborough-wr/ The Biden administration’s unexpected support for temporarily waiving Covid-19 vaccine patents won’t have an immediate financial impact on the companies making the shots, industry officials and analysts said. Yet the decision could mark a shift in Washington’s longstanding support of the industry’s valuable intellectual property, patent-law experts said. A waiver, if it does go into effect, may pose long-term risks to the vaccine makers, analysts said. Moderna Inc., MRNA -4.12 Pfizer Inc. PFE -3.10 and other vaccine makers weren’t counting on sales from the developing countries that would gain access to the vaccine technology, analysts said. If patents and other crucial product information behind the technology is made available, it would take at least several months before shots were produced, industry officials said. Yet long-term Covid-19 sales could take a hit if other companies and countries gained access to the technologies and figured out how to use it. Western drugmakers could also confront competition sooner for other medicines they are hoping to make using the technologies. A World Trade Organization waiver could also set a precedent for waiving patents for other medicines, a long-sought goal of some developing countries, patient groups and others to try to reduce the costs of prescription drugs. “It sets a tremendous precedent of waiving IP rights that’s likely going to come up in future pandemics or in other serious diseases,” said David Silverstein, a patent lawyer at Axinn, Veltrop and Harkrider LLP who advises drugmakers. “Other than that, this is largely symbolic.” Pharmaceutical innovation is key to protecting against future pandemics, bioterrorism, and antibiotic resistance. Marjanovic and Fejiao ‘20 Marjanovic, Sonja, and Carolina Feijao. Sonja Marjanovic, Ph.D., Judge Business School, University of Cambridge. Carolina Feijao, Ph.D. in biochemistry, University of Cambridge; M.Sc. in quantitive biology, Imperial College London; B.Sc. in biology, University of Lisbon. "Pharmaceutical Innovation for Infectious Disease Management: From Troubleshooting to Sustainable Models of Engagement." (2020). Quality Control As key actors in the healthcare innovation landscape, pharmaceutical and life sci-ences companies have been called on to develop medicines, vaccines and diagnostics for pressing public health challenges. The COVID-19 crisis is one such challenge, but there are many others. For example, MERS, SARS, Ebola, Zika and avian and swine flu are also infectious diseases that represent public health threats. Infectious agents such as anthrax, smallpox and tularemia could present threats in a bioterrorism con-text.1 The general threat to public health that is posed by antimicrobial resistance is also well-recognised as an area in need of pharmaceutical innovation. Innovating in response to these challenges does not always align well with pharmaceutical industry commercial models, shareholder expectations and compe-tition within the industry. However, the expertise, networks and infrastructure that industry has within its reach, as well as public expectations and the moral imperative, make pharmaceutical companies and the wider life sciences sector an indispensable partner in the search for solutions that save lives. This perspective argues for the need to establish more sustainable and scalable ways of incentivising pharmaceu-tical innovation in response to infectious disease threats to public health. It considers both past and current examples of efforts to mobilise pharmaceutical innovation in high commercial risk areas, including in the context of current efforts to respond to the COVID-19 pandemic. In global pandemic crises like COVID-19, the urgency and scale of the crisis – as well as the spotlight placed on pharmaceutical companies – mean that contributing to the search for effective medicines, vaccines or diagnostics is essential for socially responsible companies in the sec-tor.2 It is therefore unsurprising that we are seeing indus-try-wide efforts unfold at unprecedented scale and pace. Whereas there is always scope for more activity, industry is currently contributing in a variety of ways. Examples include pharmaceutical companies donating existing com-pounds to assess their utility in the fight against COVID-19; screening existing compound libraries in-house or with partners to see if they can be repurposed; accelerating tri-als for potentially effective medicine or vaccine candidates; and in some cases rapidly accelerating in-house research and development to discover new treatments or vaccine agents and develop diagnostics tests.3,4 Pharmaceutical companies are collaborating with each other in some of these efforts and participating in global RandD partnerships (such as the Innovative Medicines Initiative effort to accel-erate the development of potential therapies for COVID-19) and supporting national efforts to expand diagnosis and testing capacity and ensure affordable and ready access to potential solutions.3,5,6 The primary purpose of such innovation is to benefit patients and wider population health. Although there are also reputational benefits from involvement that can be realised across the industry, there are likely to be rela-tively few companies that are ‘commercial’ winners. Those who might gain substantial revenues will be under pres-sure not to be seen as profiting from the pandemic. In the United Kingdom for example, GSK has stated that it does not expect to profit from its COVID-19 related activities and that any gains will be invested in supporting research and long-term pandemic preparedness, as well as in developing products that would be affordable in the world’s poorest countries.7 Similarly, in the United States AbbVie has waived intellectual property rights for an existing com-bination product that is being tested for therapeutic poten-tial against COVID-19, which would support affordability and allow for a supply of generics.8,9 Johnson and Johnson has stated that its potential vaccine – which is expected to begin trials – will be available on a not-for-profit basis during the pandemic.10 Pharma is mobilising substantial efforts to rise to the COVID-19 challenge at hand. However, we need to consider how pharmaceutical innovation for responding to emerging infectious diseases can best be enabled beyond the current crisis. Many public health threats (including those associated with other infectious diseases, bioterror-ism agents and antimicrobial resistance) are urgently in need of pharmaceutical innovation, even if their impacts are not as visible to society as COVID-19 is in the imme-diate term. The pharmaceutical industry has responded to previous public health emergencies associated with infec-tious disease in recent times – for example those associated with Ebola and Zika outbreaks.11 However, it has done so to a lesser scale than for COVID-19 and with contribu-tions from fewer companies. Similarly, levels of activity in response to the threat of antimicrobial resistance are still low.12 There are important policy questions as to whether – and how – industry could engage with such public health threats to an even greater extent under improved innova-tion conditions. Bioterror causes extinction---early response key Farmer 17 (“Bioterrorism could kill more people than nuclear war, Bill Gates to warn world leaders” http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/02/17/biological-terrorism-could-kill-people-nuclear-attacks-bill/) Bioterrorists could one day kill hundreds of millions of people in an attack more deadly than nuclear war, Bill Gates will warn world leaders. Rapid advances in genetic engineering have opened the door for small terrorism groups to tailor and easily turn biological viruses into weapons. A resulting disease pandemic is currently one of the most deadly threats faced by the world, he believes, yet governments are complacent about the scale of the risk. Speaking ahead of an address to the Munich Security Conference, the richest man in the world said that while governments are concerned with the proliferation of nuclear and chemical weapons, they are overlooking the threat of biological warfare. Mr Gates, whose charitable foundationis funding research into quickly spotting outbreaks and speeding up vaccine production, said the defence and security establishment “have not been following biology and I’m here to bring them a little bit of bad news”. Mr Gates will today (Saturday) tell an audience of international leaders and senior officers that the world’s next deadly pandemic “could originate on the computer screen of a terrorist”. He told the Telegraph: “Natural epidemics can be extremely large. Intentionally caused epidemics, bioterrorism, would be the largest of all. “With nuclear weapons, you’d think you would probably stop after killing 100million. Smallpox won’t stop. Because the population is naïve, and there are no real preparations. That, if it got out and spread, would be a larger number.” He said developments in genetic engineering were proceeding at a “mind-blowing rate”. Biological warfare ambitions once limited to a handful of nation states are now open to small groups with limited resources and skills. He said: “They make it much easier for a non-state person. It doesn’t take much biology expertise nowadays to assemble a smallpox virus. Biology is making it way easier to create these things.” The increasingly common use of gene editing technology would make it difficult to spot any potential terrorist conspiracy. Technologies which have made it easy to read DNA sequences and tinker with them to rewrite or tweak genes have many legitimate uses. He said: “It’s not like when someone says, ‘Hey I’d like some Plutonium’ and you start saying ‘Hmmm.. I wonder why he wants Plutonium?’” Mr Gates said the potential death toll from a disease outbreak could be higher than other threats such as climate change or nuclear war. He said: “This is like earthquakes, you should think in order of magnitudes. If you can kill 10 people that’s a one, 100 people that’s a two... Bioterrorism is the thing that can give you not just sixes, but sevens, eights and nines. “With nuclear war, once you have got a six, or a seven, or eight, you’d think it would probably stop. With bioterrorism it’s just unbounded if you are not there to stop the spread of it.” By tailoring the genes of a virus, it would be possible to manipulate its ability to spread and its ability to harm people. Mr Gates said one of the most potentially deadly outbreaks could involve the humble flu virus. It would be relatively easy to engineer a new flu strain combining qualities from varieties that spread like wildfire with varieties that were deadly. The last time that happened naturally was the 1918 Spanish Influenza pandemic, which went on to kill more than 50 million people – or nearly three times the death toll from the First World War. By comparison, the recent Ebola outbreak in West Africa which killed just over 11,000 was “a Richter Scale three, it’s a nothing,” he said. But despite the potential, the founder of Microsoft said that world leaders and their militaries could not see beyond the more recognised risks. He said: “Should the world be serious about this? It is somewhat serious about normal classic warfare and nuclear warfare, but today it is not very serious about bio-defence or natural epidemics.” He went on: “They do tend to say ‘How easy is it to get fissile material and how accurate are the plans out on the internet for dirty bombs, plutonium bombs and hydrogen bombs?’ “They have some people that do that. What I am suggesting is that the number of people that look at bio-defence is worth increasing.” Whether naturally occurring, or deliberately started, it is almost certain that a highly lethal global pandemic will occur within our lifetimes, he believes. But the good news for those contemplating the potential damage is that the same biotechnology can prevent epidemics spreading out of control. Mr Gates will say in his speech that most of the things needed to protect against a naturally occurring pandemic are the same things needed to prepare for an intentional biological attack. Nations must amass an arsenal of new weapons to fight such a disease outbreak, including vaccines, drugs and diagnostic techniques. Being able to develop a vaccine as soon as possible against a new outbreak is particularly important and could save huge numbers of lives, scientists working at his foundation believe. Aff Case
No inherency – governments and the WTO are already reducing IP protections for medicines related to COVID-19. 2. No inherency - The Covid vaccine waiver will pass in the status quo—many countries are switching their positions now . Meyer 6/10 David Meyer senior writer for fortune, 6/10 - ("COVID-19 vaccine-patent pressure grows in Europe as lawmakers back temporary waiver," Fortune, 6-10-2021, accessed 7-5-2021, https://fortune.com/2021/06/10/covid-vaccine-patent-waiver-european-parliament-commission-wto/)//ML The temporary suspension of COVID vaccine patents—a move that's intended to help expand manufacturing and speed up the global vaccination drive, thus shortening the pandemic—was originally proposed by South Africa and India last year. Over recent months, it has gained new supporters like the World Health Organization (WHO), the Pope, and, crucially, the Biden administration.¶ However, Europe—home to major players such as BioNTech and AstraZeneca—has resisted the waiver. Just last week, the European Commission submitted an alternative plan to the World Trade Organization (WTO), proposing other measures such as limits on export restrictions, and the compulsory licensing of the patents in some circumstances.¶ That doesn't go far enough, said members of the European Parliament on Thursday, as it passed an amendment calling for a temporary waiver of the WTO's TRIPS Agreement, the global intellectual-property rulebook, in relation to COVID-19 vaccines, treatments, and equipment.¶ The amendment passed by 355 votes to 263, with 71 abstentions. The European Parliament cannot tell the Commission to change its influential tune on the issue, but the vote sent a strong political message nonetheless: Europe, with its many national votes at the WTO, is gradually shifting to the pro-waiver camp.¶ Within the Parliament—the only EU lawmaking institution whose members are directly elected by citizens—the split over the issue has largely followed left-right lines, with leftists such as the Socialists and Democrats (SandD, Parliament's second-biggest voting bloc) backing the waiver and those on the right, such as the European People's Party (EPP, the biggest bloc), opposing it.¶ "With today’s vote, the European Parliament calls on the Commission to finally do the right thing and save lives by supporting the lifting of patents for COVID-19 vaccines and medical equipment," said Kathleen Van Brempt, the SandD's lead negotiator on the subject, in a statement after the vote. "The TRIPS waiver may not prove to be a miracle solution, but it is one of the essential building blocks of a strong global vaccination campaign. Exceptional situations call for exceptional measures.¶ "The alternative proposal submitted by the European Commission to the WTO falls short in the face of the epochal challenge we are facing," she added.¶ But it is not just the European Commission that is becoming more isolated on the issue. Germany, too, is increasingly lonely in its opposition to the waiver.¶ French President Emmanuel Macron, who has previously sided with Germany, traveled to South Africa a couple of weeks ago to discuss the waiver with President Cyril Ramaphosa. On Wednesday, just ahead of the G7 summit, he flipped and joined the patent-suspension camp. That means at least two G7 leaders (also including U.S. President Joe Biden) now favor the waiver.¶ Add to that the fact that the WTO agreed on Wednesday to fully debate the waiver—a step that the EU and some other countries had previously resisted—and it seems the tide may be turning.¶ There is still a way to go, though. World Bank President David Malpass slammed the waiver idea on Wednesday, saying “it would run the risk of reducing the innovation and the RandD” in the pharmaceutical sector. (Malpass, a Trump appointee, is therefore now in opposition to the current White House.)¶ No solvency – the problem is supply. IP has already been voluntarily licensed. Tabarrok 21 - Alex Tabarrok (Bartley J. Madden Chair in Economics at the Mercatus Center and am a professor of economics at George Mason University). “Patents are Not the Problem!” Marginal Revolution. 6 May 2021. JDN. https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2021/05/ip-is-not-the-constraint.html For the last year and a half I have been shouting from the rooftops, “invest in capacity, build more factories, shore up the supply lines, spend billions to save trillions.” Fortunately, some boffins in the Biden administration have found a better way, “the US supports the waiver of IP protections on COVID-19 vaccines to help end the pandemic.”¶ Waive IP protections. So simple. Why didn’t I think of that???¶ Patents are not the problem. All of the vaccine manufacturers are trying to increase supply as quickly as possible. Billions of doses are being produced–more than ever before in the history of the world. Licenses are widely available. AstraZeneca have licensed their vaccine for production with manufactures around the world, including in India, Brazil, Mexico, Argentina, China and South Africa. JandJ’s vaccine has been licensed for production by multiple firms in the United States as well as with firms in Spain, South Africa and France. Sputnik has been licensed for production by firms in India, China, South Korea, Brazil and pending EMA approval with firms in Germany and France. Sinopharm has been licensed in the UAE, Egypt and Bangladesh. Novavax has licensed its vaccine for production in South Korea, India, and Japan and it is desperate to find other licensees but technology transfer isn’t easy and there are limited supplies of raw materials:¶ Virtually overnight, Novavax set up a network of outside manufacturers more ambitious than one outside executive said he’s ever seen, but they struggled at times to transfer their technology there amid pandemic travel restrictions. They were kicked out of one factory by the same government that’s bankrolled their effort. Competing with larger competitors, they’ve found themselves short on raw materials as diverse as Chilean tree bark and bioreactor bags. They signed a deal with India’s Serum Institute to produce many of their COVAX doses but now face the realistic chance that even when Serum gets to full capacity — and they are behind — India’s government, dealing with the world’s worst active outbreak, won’t let the shots leave the country.¶ Plastic bags are a bigger bottleneck than patents. The US embargo on vaccine supplies to India was precisely that the Biden administration used the DPA to prioritize things like bioreactor bags and filters to US suppliers and that meant that India’s Serum Institute was having trouble getting its production lines ready for Novavax. CureVac, another potential mRNA vaccine, is also finding it difficult to find supplies due to US restrictions (which means supplies are short everywhere). As Derek Lowe said:¶ Abolishing patents will not provide more shaker bags or more Chilean tree bark, nor provide more of the key filtration materials needed for production. These processes have a lot of potential choke points and rate-limiting steps in them, and there is no wand that will wave that complexity away.¶ Technology transfer has been difficult for AstraZeneca–which is one reason they have had production difficulties–and their vaccine uses relatively well understood technology. The mRNA technology is new and has never before been used to produce at scale. Pfizer and Moderna had to build factories and distribution systems from scratch. There are no mRNA factories idling on the sidelines. If there were, Moderna or Pfizer would be happy to license since they are producing in their own factories 24 hours a day, seven days a week (monopolies restrict supply, remember?). Why do you think China hasn’t yet produced an mRNA vaccine? Hint: it isn’t fear about violating IP. Moreover, even Moderna and Pfizer don’t yet fully understand their production technology, they are learning by doing every single day. Moderna has said that they won’t enforce their patents during the pandemic but no one has stepped up to produce because no one else can.¶ The US trade representative’s announcement is virtue signaling to the anti-market left and will do little to nothing to increase supply.
Turn: TRIPS reduces global health inequality Samir Raheem Alsoodani 15, “"The WTO Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) may offered an access to essential pharmaceutical drugs for developing countries,” Journal Of the College of law /Al-Nahrain University 2015, Volume 17, Issue 2, Pages 393-410, https://www.iasj.net/iasj/article/109180 To conclude, it is beyond doubt that the TRIPS Agreement and its later, permanent amendment of 2005 attempted in good faith to address an urgent issue faced by many developing countries with regards to accessing essential medicine. To a certain extent in its basic tenets, it has had a profound and positive effect on the system, as it has made permanently possible the opportunity for the poorest countries to obtain medications more cheaply through manufacture in developing countries under a compulsory licensing system. Certain positive outcomes arguably include the fact that disputes have been brought under the jurisdiction of one regulatory body, and the least developed Members have found some redress in the power balance regarding costs paid to the pharmaceutical industries based in the wealthier, developed countries (even if this redress has only been to the extent of facilitating increased bargaining capability). This can be considered a triumph from the perspective of universal human rights.
Solvency Turn: Weakening patents is worse – eliminates funds for RandD and halts pharma innovations that prevents an effective development of a right to health. Sarah Joseph 11, Professor of Human Rights Law, and the Director of the Castan Centre for Human Rights Law at Monash University, Sarah, “Blame it on the WTO?” http://www.oxfordscholarship.com/view/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199565894.001.0001/acprof-9780199565894-chapter-8#acprof-9780199565894-note-1350 IP protection restricts trade and competition, so IP clauses are somewhat anomalous in trade agreements, which are normally designed to decrease trade barriers. What is the justification for IP protection?44 Due to their relevance to this chapter, I will concentrate on arguments in favour of patents.45 Patents reward people for their inventions, thus encouraging creativity and innovation. Patents operate on the assumption that people are not inherently altruistic, and expect rewards for their endeavours, especially when those endeavours are risky as they may, and often do, result in costly failure.46 Furthermore, the money raised from patent protection is said to be necessary to fund the considerable costs of research and development (RandD).47 Therefore, without patents, innovation in the pharmaceutical field (or any industrial field) might grind to a standstill. While it is true that the high prices generated by patent protection may render access to drugs selective, (p.221) it is nevertheless better that a drug is available to some rather than non-existent and available to no one. The global extension of patent law mandated by TRIPS helps to ensure that patents are not undermined by the sale of competing pirated copies. Furthermore, global IP regimes should theoretically encourage greater technology transfer between countries, greater foreign direct investment, and greater local innovation within compliant states.48 All of these outcomes should accelerate the economic development of poor countries, with positive knock-on effects for human rights. Thus, perhaps it is arguable that pharmaceutical patents are justifiable under international human rights law, as they promote RandD which is essential for the future enhancement of rights to life and health. Furthermore, to the extent that they are held by natural persons, they are one way of protecting that person’s rights under Article 15(1)(c) of the ICESCR.
The TRIPS waiver for covid chills future pharmaceutical innovation and won’t be able stop the pandemic because of supply bottle necks. Twes and Rosen 7/21 Shane Tews Nonresident Senior Fellow at AEI and Michael Rosen Adjunct Fellow at AEI, 21 - ("The future of intellectual property policy — COVID-19 and beyond: Highlights from my conversation with Michael Rosen," American Enterprise Institute - AEI, 7-21-2021, accessed 8-18-2021, https://www.aei.org/technology-and-innovation/the-future-of-intellectual-property-policy-covid-19-and-beyond-highlights-from-my-conversation-with-michael-rosen/)//ML The charitable answer for why this was proposed — and I think there is a lot of truth to it — is that India was ravaged by one of the worst COVID-19 outbreaks in the world and unfortunately did not have enough shots to vaccinate its 1.3 billion people. But there are other explanations as well involving the fact that India and South Africa are the leading countries for producing generic drugs. And what they’re seeking would actually bestow a windfall on the generic industries. So it’s not necessarily coming from a place that’s misguided, but there are other interests there besides just solving the pandemic that’s raging in their countries.¶ Does this proposal seem likely to give us leverage over the problem at hand? You’ve written several pieces for AEI’s Tech Policy Daily on why you think the Biden administration is wrong to support the proposal, so what are your thoughts?¶ The problem with the waiver proposal is that it does too much that’s bad and too little that’s good. First of all, it will take up to at least the end of this year before the WTO in a consensus fashion can actually make progress on this proposal. It’s a long, slow, bureaucratic process to get one of these types of waivers through the WTO. So even though at the beginning of May the Biden administration signaled that would support this motion, there’s still a lot of opposition — especially in Europe, Australia, and Japan.¶ And according to what’s been reported, it’ll likely take until November or December for the WTO to actually reach a decision on that. By that time, of course, the worst of the raging pandemic in India and other places around the world will have passed and hundreds of millions of vaccine doses will be created by them.¶ But it’s not just that. Even after a process has been approved, it will take a significant amount of time for these generic manufacturers to get off the ground, test their products, and obtain the necessary regulatory approvals that they’re as safe and effective as the branded Pfizer, Moderna, etc. vaccines. Even then, the main problem in developing countries right now is not so much the lack of vaccines — although that is a problem — but the lack of infrastructure in terms of supply chain and logistics to get these medicines in the hands of people who need them. We’re talking about in many cases — with Pfizer, at least — deep-freezing capacity, refrigerated or frozen trucks, and transportation. So there are many, many bottlenecks for both the vaccines and raw materials. ¶ The real problem here isn’t that patents are preventing people from being vaccinated; it’s all these other conditions. And that’s where I would say it just does too little that’s good to actually waive these protections.¶ The supply chain is always in there somewhere. Talk more about how that plays into this.¶ That is indeed going to be a problem — not so much for the pioneering drug companies, but for those who are trying to copy what they’re doing, and even more so for patients who are going to be receiving these doses that may not be properly tested or arrive on time if they can’t get the supply chain and all the associated know-how to go with it.¶ Some who are, I think, on the more extreme side of this debate would say: Not only should Pfizer, Johnson and Johnson, AstraZeneca, and Moderna have to suspend their patent enforcement rights, but they need to be compelled to affirmatively hand over all of their know-how and trade secrets about how to actually make, supply, and distribute these products to generic manufacturers.¶ And it’s interesting because Moderna actually agreed last year to not enforce their own COVID-19 vaccine patents. So from their perspective, this is kind of a non-issue because they’ve agreed very altruistically to give up their patents until this pandemic ends. But the waiver would go far beyond that because there are other patents related to the mRNA vector for developing that technology. Since those patents would also fall by the wayside, we could go way too far in that regard.¶ Also, Moderna was literally facing bankruptcy. It went all-in investing billions of dollars in this mRNA technology. Had it not succeeded as it did — thank God — that company would have gone under. It’s very easy, as some activists do, to paint with a broad brush this concept that Big Pharma is evil, profit-hungry, and money-mad. But in fact, these companies are taking real risks with real dollars from real investors. And without the promise of some kind of return there, we wouldn’t have these breakthroughs. It’s that simple: It’s not the place of governments to say who has made too much money.¶ But the bigger problem isn’t so much these companies’ future earnings; the problem is for the next pandemic, which we have to assume is going to happen at some point. What’s going to happen when the next set of vaccine pioneers expect that even when they come up with a terrific cure, they’re going to have to suspend their patents? It’s going to give innovators and investors pause to know they could be pouring billions of dollars into developing and testing these cures only to have it taken away. That’s where, in my view, it does too much.¶ So you’re essentially saying the success of a company like Moderna — which almost went under — speaks to why we need IP-related incentives on the horizon?¶ Yes, absolutely. That’s what our system is all about. Our system of IP protection and innovation relies on a risk-reward benefit in exchange for disclosure. And to me and many who oppose this waiver, there are concrete and effective steps these companies and western countries can take to end the pandemic much faster that don’t involve waiving patents. For instance, the companies can be encouraged to manufacture more doses even faster. And I think because of the threat of the waiver, they are feeling pressure to do this (although there are raw materials constraints).¶ Even more so, this is a golden opportunity for the US, UK, and others to engage in vaccine diplomacy. This is a great opportunity for the government to spend a few tens of billions of dollars on doses and give them away where our influence can be felt to create a sense of gratitude to the US — and also because it’s the right thing to do. ¶ And yes, it will be expensive. There’s no question, but when the Biden administration is talking about spending $1.9 trillion on a so-called infrastructure plan, tens of billions of dollars to actually help put a final nail in the coffin of this pandemic and bolster US influence and strategic goals around the world is a no-brainer. And if the vaccine manufacturers are willing to provide these at cost or at a small markup, this is great bang for the buck for the US taxpayer. Prefer the CP: TRIPs solves innovation Margaret Kyle and Yi Qian 14, Kyle is Professor of Economics. Center for Industrial Economics, “INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY RIGHTS AND ACCESS TO INNOVATION: EVIDENCE FROM TRIPS,” https://www.nber.org/papers/w20799 Our results suggest that the consequences of TRIPS-required patents on access have not been as negative as predicted by many in the global health community. Patents are generally associated with earlier launch of new products and higher sales. The effect of a patent on an innovator’s launch incentive appears to be greater than the effect of removing this barrier to entry for generics, on average. This finding suggests the existence of other important barriers, some of which may be directly linked to regulatory policies. Surprisingly, we find a decrease in the price premium enjoyed by drugs with patents in the post-TRIPS era, although patented drugs are nevertheless still more expensive. Countervailing policies such as price controls or the threat of compulsory licensing may be responsible, either directly or indirectly by inducing different pricing behavior from originators.
FW We acess the FW better:
only IP incentivizes companies to ensure governments get rid of dangerous counterfeit copies and increase quality control - reducing IP protections in one area also spills over and means there is no incentive for research into diseases like cancer and Alzheimers which will continue to kill millions each year – that was also Macdole and Ezell 2. Passing the aff means extinction-- Bioterrorism – genetic engineering makes the spread of deadly pathogens easier, cheaper, and inevitable – the only way to solve an unavoidable outbreak is through quick pharmaceutical innovation – that was Marjanovic and Fejiao and Farmer
9/19/21
HH NC Rd 2
Tournament: Jack Howe | Round: 2 | Opponent: Peninsula EL | Judge: Saketh Kotapati Neg Covid CP Counterplan: High-income country governments, backed by the United States, should provide all necessary funding to purchase COVID-19 vaccines developed by drug companies at any reasonable cost and distribute them as requested world-wide. Lindsay 6/11 - Brink Lindsay, Brookings, 6-11, 2021, Why intellectual property and pandemics don’t mix, https://www.brookings.edu/blog/up-front/2021/06/03/why-intellectual-property-and-pandemics-dont-mix/ Waiving patent protections is certainly no panacea. What is needed most urgently is a massive drive of technology transfer, capacity expansion, and supply line coordination to bring vaccine supply in line with global demand. Dispensing with patents in no way obviates the need for governments to fund and oversee this effort.¶ Although focusing on these immediate constraints is vital, we cannot confine our attention to the short term. First of all, the COVID-19 pandemic is far from over. Although Americans can now see the light at the end of the tunnel thanks to the rapid rollout of vaccines, most of the world isn’t so lucky. The virus is¶ currently raging in India and throughout South America, overwhelming health care systems and inflicting suffering and loss on a horrific scale. And consider the fact that Australia, which has been successful in suppressing the virus, recently announced it was sticking to plans to keep its borders closed until mid-2022. Criticisms of the TRIPS waiver that focus only on the next few months are therefore short-sighted: this pandemic could well drag on long enough for elimination of patent restrictions to enable new vaccine producers to make a positive difference.¶ Furthermore, and probably even more important, this is almost certainly not the last pandemic we will face. Urbanization, the spread of factory-farming methods, and globalization all combine to increase the odds that a new virus will make the jump from animals to humans and then spread rapidly around the world. Prior to the current pandemic, the 21st century already saw outbreaks of SARS, H1N1, MERS, and Ebola. Everything we do and learn in the current crisis should be viewed from the perspective of getting ready for next time.¶ The Nature of the Patent Bargain¶ When we take the longer view, we can see a fundamental mismatch between the policy design of intellectual property protection and the policy requirements of effective pandemic response. Although patent law, properly restrained, constitutes one important element of a well-designed national innovation system, the way it goes about encouraging technological progress is singularly ill-suited to the emergency conditions of a pandemic or other public health crisis. Securing a TRIPS waiver for COVID-19 vaccines and treatments would thus establish a salutary precedent that, in emergencies of this kind, governments should employ other, more direct means to incentivize the development of new drugs.¶ Here is the basic bargain offered by patent law: encourage the creation of useful new ideas for the long run by slowing the diffusion of useful new ideas in the short run. The second half of the bargain, the half that imposes costs on society, comes from the temporary exclusive rights, or monopoly privileges, that a patent holder enjoys. Under U.S. patent law, for a period of 20 years nobody else can manufacture or sell the patented product without the permission of the patent holder. This allows the patent holder to block competitors from the market, or extract licensing fees before allowing them to enter, and consequently charge above-market prices to its customers. Patent rights thus slow the diffusion of a new invention by restricting output and raising prices.¶ The imposition of these short-run costs, however, can bring net long-term benefits by sharpening the incentives to invent new products. In the absence of patent protection, the prospect of easy imitation by later market entrants can deter would-be innovators from incurring the up-front fixed costs of research and development. But with a guaranteed period of market exclusivity, inventors can proceed with greater confidence that they will be able to recoup their investment.¶ For the tradeoff between costs and benefits to come out positive on net, patent law must strike the right balance. Exclusive rights should be valuable enough to encourage greater innovation, but not so easily granted or extensive in scope or term that this encouragement is outweighed by output restrictions on the patented product and discouragement of downstream innovations dependent on access to the patented technology.¶ Unfortunately, the U.S. patent system at present is out of balance. Over the past few decades, the expansion of patentability to include software and business methods as well as a general relaxation of patenting requirements have led to wildly excessive growth in these temporary monopolies: the number of patents granted annually has¶ skyrocketed roughly fivefold since the early 1980s. One unfortunate result has been the rise of “non-practicing entities,” better known as patent trolls: firms that make nothing themselves but buy up patent portfolios and monetize them through aggressive litigation. As a result, a law that is supposed to encourage innovation has turned into a¶ legal minefield for many would-be innovators. In the pharmaceutical industry, firms have abused the law by piling up patents for trivial, therapeutically irrelevant “innovations” that allow them to¶ extend their monopolies and keep raising prices long beyond the statutorily contemplated 20 years.¶ Patent law is creating these unintended consequences because policymakers have been caught in an ideological fog that¶ conflates “intellectual property” with actual property rights over physical objects. Enveloped in that fog, they regard any attempts to put limits on patent monopolies as attacks on private property and view ongoing expansions of patent privileges as necessary to keep innovation from grinding to a halt. In fact, patent law is a tool of regulatory policy with the usual tradeoffs between costs and benefits; like all tools, it can be misused, and as with all tools there are some jobs for which other tools are better suited. A well-designed patent system, in which benefits are maximized and costs kept to a minimum, is just one of various policy options that governments can employ to stimulate technological advance—including tax credits for RandD, prizes for targeted inventions, and direct government support.¶ Public Health Emergencies and Direct Government Support¶ For pandemics and other public health emergencies, patents’ mix of costs and benefits is misaligned with what is needed for an effective policy response. The basic patent bargain, even when well struck, is to pay for more innovation down the road with slower diffusion of innovation today. In the context of a pandemic, that bargain is a bad one and should be rejected entirely. Here the imperative is to accelerate the diffusion of vaccines and other treatments, not slow it down. Giving drug companies the power to hold things up by blocking competitors and raising prices pushes in the completely wrong direction. What approach to encouraging innovation should we take instead? How do we incentivize drug makers to undertake the hefty RandD costs to develop new vaccines without giving them exclusive rights over their production and sale? The most effective approach during a public health crisis is direct government support: public funding of RandD, advance purchase commitments by the government to buy large numbers of doses at set prices, and other, related payouts. And when we pay drug makers, we should not hesitate to pay generously, even extravagantly: we want to offer drug companies big profits so that they prioritize this work above everything else, and so that they are ready and eager to come to the rescue again the next time there’s a crisis. It was direct support via Operation Warp Speed that made possible the astonishingly rapid development of COVID-19 vaccines and then facilitated a relatively rapid rollout of vaccine distribution (relative, that is, to most of the rest of the world). And it’s worth noting that a major reason for the faster rollout here and in the United Kingdom compared to the European Union was the latter’s misguided penny-pinching. The EU bargained hard with firms to keep vaccine prices low, and as a result their citizens ended up in the back of the queue as various supply line kinks were being ironed out. This is particularly ironic since the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine was developed in Germany. As this fact underscores, the chief advantage of direct support isn’t to “get tough” with drug firms and keep a lid on their profits. Instead, it is to accelerate the end of the public health emergency by making sure drug makers profit handsomely from doing the right thing. Patent law and direct support should be seen not as either-or alternatives but as complements that apply different incentives to different circumstances and time horizons. Patent law provides a decentralized system for encouraging innovation. The government doesn’t presume to tell the industry which new drugs are needed; it simply incentivizes the development of whatever new drugs that pharmaceutical firms can come up with by offering them a temporary monopoly. It is important to note that patent law’s incentives offer no commercial guarantees. Yes, you can block other competitors for a number of years, but that still doesn’t ensure enough consumer demand for the new product to make it profitable. The situation is different in a pandemic. Here the government knows exactly what it wants to incentivize: the creation of vaccines to prevent the spread of a specific virus and other drugs to treat that virus. Under these circumstances, the decentralized approach isn’t good enough. There is no time to sit back and let drug makers take the initiative on their own timeline. Instead, the government needs to be more involved to incentivize specific innovations now. As recompense for letting it call the shots (pardon the pun), the government sweetens the deal for drug companies by insulating them from commercial risk. If pharmaceutical firms develop effective vaccines and therapies, the government will buy large, predetermined quantities at prices set high enough to guarantee a healthy return. For the pharmaceutical industry, it is useful to conceive of patent law as the default regime for innovation promotion. It improves pharmaceutical companies’ incentives to develop new drugs while leaving them free to decide which new drugs to pursue – and also leaving them to bear all commercial risk. In a pandemic or other emergency, however, it is appropriate to shift to the direct support regime, in which the government focuses efforts on one disease. In this regime, it is important to note, the government provides qualitatively superior incentives to those offered under patent law. Not only does it offer public funding to cover the up-front costs of drug development, but it also provides advance purchase commitments that guarantee a healthy return. It should therefore be clear that the pharmaceutical industry has no legitimate basis for objecting to a TRIPS waiver. Since, because of the public health crisis, drug makers now qualify for the superior benefits of direct government support, they no longer need the default benefits of patent support. Arguments that a TRIPS waiver would deprive drug makers of the incentives they need to keep developing new drugs, when they are presently receiving the most favorable incentives available, can be dismissed as the worst sort of special pleading. That said, it is a serious mistake to try to cast the current crisis as a morality play in which drug makers wear the black hats and the choice at hand is between private profits and public health. We would have no chance of beating this virus without the formidable organizational capabilities of the pharmaceutical industry, and providing the appropriate incentives is essential to ensure that the industry plays its necessary and vital role. It is misguided to lament that private companies are profiting in the current crisis: those profits are a drop in the bucket compared to the staggering cost of this pandemic in lives and economic damage. What matters isn’t the existence or size of the profits, but how they are earned. We have good reason to want drug makers to profit from vaccinating the world: the comparative price is minuscule, and the incentive effects are a vital safeguard of public health in the event of future crises. What we want to avoid at all costs is putting drug makers in the position where drug companies can profit from standing in the way of rapid global vaccination. That is why intellectual property rights need to be taken out of the equation. Vaccinating the world in any kind of reasonable time frame will require large-scale technology transfer to drug firms in other countries and rapid expansion of their production capacity. And looking beyond the current pandemic to the longer term, we need ample, redundant global vaccine production capacity that is widely distributed around the planet. To achieve these goals as rapidly as possible will require the active cooperation of the U.S. pharmaceutical industry, which is why the direct support model now needs to be extended. What is needed now is an Operation Warp Speed for the world, in which we make it worth current vaccine producers’ while to share their know-how broadly and ramp up global capacity. Here again, we must recognize that the choice isn’t between people on the one hand and profits on the other. Rather, the key to good pandemic response policy is ensuring that incentives are structured so that drug company profit-seeking and global public health are well aligned. That means opting out of the default, decentralized patent bargain in favor of generous but well-focused direct government support. Innovation DA The pharma industry is strong now but patents are key for continued economic growth. Batell and PhRMA 14: Batell and PhRMA {Battelle is the world’s largest nonprofit independent research and development organization, providing innovative solutions to the world’s most pressing needs through its four global businesses: Laboratory Management, National Security, Energy, Environment and Material Sciences, and Health and Life Sciences. The Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA) represents the country’s leading pharmaceutical research and biotechnology companies, which are devoted to inventing medicines that allow patients to live longer, healthier, and more productive lives.}, 14 – “The U.S. Biopharmaceutical Industry: Perspectives on Future Growth and The Factors That Will Drive It,” http://phrma-docs.phrma.org/sites/default/files/pdf/2014-economic-futures-report.pdf//marlborough-wr// Compared to other capital-intensive, advanced manufacturing industries in the U.S., the biopharmaceutical industry is a leader in RandD investment, IP generation, venture capital investment, and RandD employment. Policies and infrastructure that helped foster these innovative activities have allowed the U.S. to seize global leadership in biopharmaceutical RandD over the past 30 years. However, as this report details, other countries are seeking to compete with the U.S. by borrowing and building upon some of these pro-innovation policies to improve their own operating environment and become more favorable to biopharmaceutical companies making decisions about where to locate their RandD and manufacturing activities. A unique contribution of this report was the inclusion of the perspective of senior-level strategic planning executives of biopharmaceutical companies regarding what policy areas they see as most likely to impact the favorability of the U.S. business operating environment. The executives cited the following factors as having the most impact on the favorability of the operating environment and hence, potential growth of the innovative biopharmaceutical industry in the U.S.: • Coverage and payment policies that support and encourage medical innovation • A well-functioning, science-based regulatory system • Strong IP protection and enforcement in the U.S. and abroad The top sub-attribute identified as driving future biopharmaceutical industry growth in the U.S. cited by executives was a domestic IP system that provides adequate patent rights and data protection. Collectively, these factors underscore the need to reduce uncertainties and ensure adequate incentives for the lengthy, costly, and risky RandD investments necessary to develop new treatments needed by patients and society to address our most costly and challenging diseases. With more than 300,000 jobs at stake between the two scenarios, the continued growth and leadership of the U.S. innovative biopharmaceutical industry cannot be taken for granted. Continued innovation is fundamental to U.S. economic well-being and the nation’s ability to compete effectively in a globalized economy and to take advantage of the expected growth in demand for new medicines around the world. Just as other countries have drawn lessons from the growth of the U.S. biopharmaceutical sector, the U.S. needs to assess how it can improve the environment for innovation and continue to boost job creation by increasing RandD investment, fostering a robust talent pool, enhancing economic growth and sustainability, and continuing to bring new medicines to patients. COVID has kept patents and innovation strong, but continued protection is key to innovation by incentivizing biomedical research – it’s also crucial to preventing counterfeit medicines, economic collapse, and fatal diseases, which independently turns case. Macdole and Ezell 4-29: Jaci Mcdole and Stephen Ezell {Jaci McDole is a senior policy analyst covering intellectual property (IP) and innovation policy at the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation (ITIF). She focuses on IP and its correlations to global innovation and trade. McDole holds a double BA in Music Business and Radio-Television with a minor in Marketing, an MS in Education, and a JD with a specialization in intellectual property (Southern Illinois University Carbondale). McDole comes to ITIF from the Institute for Intellectual Property Research, an organization she co-founded to study and further robust global IP policies. Stephen Ezell is vice president, global innovation policy, at the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation (ITIF). He comes to ITIF from Peer Insight, an innovation research and consulting firm he cofounded in 2003 to study the practice of innovation in service industries. At Peer Insight, Ezell led the Global Service Innovation Consortium, published multiple research papers on service innovation, and researched national service innovation policies being implemented by governments worldwide. Prior to forming Peer Insight, Ezell worked in the New Service Development group at the NASDAQ Stock Market, where he spearheaded the creation of the NASDAQ Market Intelligence Desk and the NASDAQ Corporate Services Network, services for NASDAQ-listed corporations. Previously, Ezell cofounded two successful innovation ventures, the high-tech services firm Brivo Systems and Lynx Capital, a boutique investment bank. Ezell holds a B.S. from the School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University, with an honors certificate from Georgetown’s Landegger International Business Diplomacy program.}, 21 - ("Ten Ways Ip Has Enabled Innovations That Have Helped Sustain The World Through The Pandemic," Information Technology and Innovation Foundation, 4-29-2021, https://itif.org/publications/2021/04/29/ten-ways-ip-has-enabled-innovations-have-helped-sustain-world-through)//marlborough-wr/ To better understand the role of IP in enabling solutions related to COVID-19 challenges, this report relies on 10 case studies drawn from a variety of nations, technical fields, and firm sizes. This is but a handful of the thousands of IP-enabled innovations that have sprung forth over the past year in an effort to meet the tremendous challenges brought on by COVID-19 globally. From a paramedic in Mexico to a veteran vaccine manufacturing company in India and a tech start-up in Estonia to a U.S.-based company offering workplace Internet of Things (IoT) services, small and large organizations alike are working to combat the pandemic. Some have adapted existing innovations, while others have developed novel solutions. All are working to take the world out of the pandemic and into the future. The case studies are: Bharat Biotech: Covaxin Gilead: Remdesivir LumiraDX: SARS-COV-2 Antigen POC Test Teal Bio: Teal Bio Respirator XE Ingeniería Médica: CápsulaXE Surgical Theater: Precision VR Tombot: Jennie Starship Technologies: Autonomous Delivery Robots Triax Technologies: Proximity Trace Zoom: Video Conferencing As the case studies show, IP is critical to enabling innovation. Policymakers around the world need to ensure robust IP protections are—and remain—in place if they wish their citizens to have safe and innovative solutions to health care, workplace, and societal challenges in the future. THE ROLE OF INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY IN RandD-INTENSIVE INDUSTRIES Intangible assets, such as IP rights, comprised approximately 84 percent of the corporate value of SandP 500 companies in 2018.4 For start-ups, this means much of the capital needed to operate is directly related to IP (see Teal Bio case study for more on this). IP also plays an especially important role for RandD-intensive industries.5 To take the example of the biopharmaceutical industry, it is characterized by high-risk, time-consuming, and expensive processes including basic research, drug discovery, pre-clinical trials, three stages of human clinical trials, regulatory review, and post-approval research and safety monitoring. The drug development process spans an average of 11.5 to 15 years.6 For every 5,000 to 10,000 compounds screened on average during the basic research and drug discovery phases, approximately 250 molecular compounds, or 2.5 to 5 percent, make it to preclinical testing. Out of those 250 molecular compounds, approximately 5 make it to clinical testing. That is, 0.05 to 0.1 percent of drugs make it from basic research into clinical trials. Of those rare few which make it to clinical testing, less than 12 percent are ultimately approved for use by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA).7 In addition to high risks, drug development is costly, and the expenses associated with it are increasing. A 2019 report by the Deloitte Center for Health Solutions concluded that since 2010 the average cost of bringing a new drug to market increased by 67 percent.8 Numerous studies have examined the substantial cost of biopharmaceutical RandD, and most confirm investing in new drug development requires $1.7 billion to $3.2 billion up front on average.9 A 2018 study by the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness found similar risks and figures for vaccines, stating, “In general, vaccine development from discovery to licensure can cost billions of dollars, can take over 10 years to complete, and has an average 94 percent chance of failure.”10 Yet, a 2010 study found that 80 percent of new drugs—that is, the less than 12 percent ultimately approved by the FDA—made less than their capitalized RandD costs.11 Another study found that only 1 percent (maybe three new drugs each year) of the most successful 10 percent of FDA approved drugs generate half of the profits of the entire drug industry.12 To say the least, biopharmaceutical RandD represents a high-stakes, long-term endeavor with precarious returns. Without IP protection, biopharmaceutical manufacturers have little incentive to take the risks necessary to engage in the RandD process because they would be unable to recoup even a fraction of the costs incurred. Diminished revenues also result in reduced investments in RandD which means less research into cancer drugs, Alzheimer cures, vaccines, and more. IP rights give life-sciences enterprises the confidence needed to undertake the difficult, risky, and expensive process of life-sciences innovation secure in the knowledge they can capture a share of the gains from their innovations, which is indispensable not only to recouping the up-front RandD costs of a given drug, but which can generate sufficient profits to enable investment in future generations of biomedical innovation and thus perpetuate the enterprises into the future.13 THE IMPORTANCE OF INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY TO INNOVATION Although anti-IP proponents have attacked biopharmaceutical manufacturers particularly hard, the reality is all IP-protected innovations are at risk if these rights are ignored, or vitiated. Certain arguments have shown a desire for the term “COVID-19 innovations” to include everything from vaccines, therapeutics, diagnostics, and PPE to biotechnology, AI-related data, and educational materials.14 This could potentially open the floodgates to invalidate IP protection on many of the innovations highlighted in this report. However, much of the current discussion concerning IP focuses almost entirely on litigation fears or RandD incentives. Although RandD is an important aspect of IP, as previously mentioned, these discussions ignore the fact that IP protection can be—and often is—used for other purposes, including generating initial capital to create a company and begin manufacturing and, more importantly, using licensing agreements and IP to track the supply chain and ensure quality control of products. This report highlights but a handful of the thousands of IP-enabled innovations that have sprung forth over the past year in an effort to meet the tremendous challenges brought on by COVID-19 globally. In 2018, Forbes identified counterfeiting as the largest criminal enterprise in the world.15 The global struggle against counterfeit and non-regulated products, which has hit Latin America particularly hard during the pandemic, proves the need for safety and quality assurance in supply chains.16 Some communities already ravaged by COVID-19 are seeing higher mortality rates related to counterfeit vaccines, therapeutics, PPE, and cleaning and sanitizing products.17 Polish authorities discovered vials of antiwrinkle treatment labeled as COVID-19 vaccines. 18 In Mexico, fake vaccines sold for approximately $1,000 per dose.19 Chinese and South African police seized thousands of counterfeit vaccine doses from warehouses and manufacturing plants.20 Meanwhile, dozens of websites worldwide claiming to sell vaccines or be affiliated with vaccine manufacturers have been taken down.21 But the problem is not limited to biopharmaceuticals. The National Intellectual Property Rights Coordination Center has recovered $48 million worth of counterfeit PPE and other products.22 Collaborative efforts between law enforcement and manufacturers have kept numerous counterfeits from reaching the population. In countries with strong IP protection, the chances of counterfeit products reaching the market are significantly lower. This is largely because counterfeiting tends to be an IP-related issue, and these countries generally provide superior means of tracking the supply chain through trademarks, trade secrets, and licensing agreements. This enables greater quality control and helps manufacturers maintain a level of public confidence in their products. By controlling the flow of knowledge associated with IP, voluntary licensing agreements provide innovators with opportunities to collaborate, while ensuring their partners are properly equipped and capable of producing quality products. Throughout this difficult time, the world has seen unexpected collaborations, especially between biopharmaceutical companies worldwide such as Gilead and Eva Pharma or Bharat Biotech and Ocugen, Inc. Throughout history, and most significantly in the nineteenth century through the widespread development of patent systems and the ensuing Industrial Revolution, IP has contributed toward greater economic growth.23 This is promising news as the world struggles for economic recovery. A 2021 joint study by the EU Intellectual Property Office (EUIPO) and European Patent Office (EPO) shows a strong, positive correlation between IP rights and economic performance.24 It states that “IP-owning firms represent a significantly larger proportion of economic activity and employment across Europe,” with IP-intensive industries contributing to 45 percent of gross domestic product (GDP) (€6.6 trillion; US$7.9 trillion).25 The study also shows 38.9 percent of employment is directly or indirectly attributed to IP-intensive industries, and IP generates higher wages and greater revenue per employee, especially for small-to-medium-sized enterprises.26 That concords with the United States, where the Department of Commerce estimated that IP-intensive industries support at least 45 million jobs and contribute more than $6 trillion dollars to, or 38.2 percent of, GDP.27 In 2020, global patent filings through the World Intellectual Property Organization’s (WIPO) Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT) system reached a record 275,900 filings amidst the pandemic, growing 4 percent from 2019.28 The top-four nations, which accounted for 180,530 of the patent applications, were China, the United States, Japan, and Korea, respectively.29 While several countries saw an increase in patent filings, Saudi Arabia and Malaysia both saw significant increases in the number of annual applications, with the top two filing growths of 73 percent and 26 percent, respectively.30 The COVID-19 pandemic slowed a lot of things, but it certainly couldn’t stop innovation. There are at least five principal benefits strong IP rights can generate, for both developing and developed countries alike.31 First, stronger IP protection spurs the virtuous cycle of innovation by increasing the appropriability of returns, enabling economic gain and catalyzing economic growth. Second, through patents—which require innovators to disclose certain knowledge as a condition of protection—knowledge spillovers build a platform of knowledge that enables other innovators. For instance, studies have found that the rate of return to society from corporate RandD and innovation activities is at least twice the estimated returns that each company itself receives.32 Third, countries with robust IP can operate more efficiently and productively by using IP to determine product quality and reduce transaction costs. Fourth, trade and foreign direct investment enabled and encouraged by strong IP protection offered to enterprises from foreign countries facilitates an accumulation of knowledge capital within the destination economy. That matters when foreign sources of technology account for over 90 percent of productivity growth in most countries.33 There’s also evidence suggesting that developing nations with stronger IP protections enjoy the earlier introduction of innovative new medicines.34 And fifth, strong IP boosts exports, including in developing countries.35 Research shows a positive correlation between stronger IP protection and exports from developing countries as well as faster growth rates of certain industries.36 The following case studies illustrate these benefits of IP and how they’ve enabled innovative solutions to help global society navigate the COVID-19 pandemic. This sets a precedent that spills over to all future diseases – Hopkins 21: Jared S. Hopkins {Jared S. Hopkins is a New York-based reporter for The Wall Street Journal covering the pharmaceutical industry, including companies such as Pfizer Inc. and Merck and Co. He previously was a health-care reporter at Bloomberg News and an investigative reporter at the Chicago Tribune. Jared started his career at The Times-News in Twin Falls, Idaho covering politics. In 2014, he was a finalist for the Livingston Award For Young Journalists for an investigation into charities founded by professional athletes. In 2011, he was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in Investigative Reporting for a series about neglect at a residential facility for disabled kids. Jared graduated from the Merrill College of Journalism at the University of Maryland-College Park with a bachelor's degree in journalism}, 21 - ("U.S. Support for Patent Waiver Unlikely to Cost Covid-19 Vaccine Makers in Short Term ," WSJ, 5-7-2021, https://www.wsj.com/articles/u-s-support-for-patent-waiver-unlikely-to-cost-covid-19-vaccine-makers-in-short-term-11620414260)//marlborough-wr/ The Biden administration’s unexpected support for temporarily waiving Covid-19 vaccine patents won’t have an immediate financial impact on the companies making the shots, industry officials and analysts said. Yet the decision could mark a shift in Washington’s longstanding support of the industry’s valuable intellectual property, patent-law experts said. A waiver, if it does go into effect, may pose long-term risks to the vaccine makers, analysts said. Moderna Inc., MRNA -4.12 Pfizer Inc. PFE -3.10 and other vaccine makers weren’t counting on sales from the developing countries that would gain access to the vaccine technology, analysts said. If patents and other crucial product information behind the technology is made available, it would take at least several months before shots were produced, industry officials said. Yet long-term Covid-19 sales could take a hit if other companies and countries gained access to the technologies and figured out how to use it. Western drugmakers could also confront competition sooner for other medicines they are hoping to make using the technologies. A World Trade Organization waiver could also set a precedent for waiving patents for other medicines, a long-sought goal of some developing countries, patient groups and others to try to reduce the costs of prescription drugs. “It sets a tremendous precedent of waiving IP rights that’s likely going to come up in future pandemics or in other serious diseases,” said David Silverstein, a patent lawyer at Axinn, Veltrop and Harkrider LLP who advises drugmakers. “Other than that, this is largely symbolic.” Pharmaceutical innovation is key to protecting against future pandemics, bioterrorism, and antibiotic resistance. Marjanovic and Fejiao ‘20 Marjanovic, Sonja, and Carolina Feijao. Sonja Marjanovic, Ph.D., Judge Business School, University of Cambridge. Carolina Feijao, Ph.D. in biochemistry, University of Cambridge; M.Sc. in quantitive biology, Imperial College London; B.Sc. in biology, University of Lisbon. "Pharmaceutical Innovation for Infectious Disease Management: From Troubleshooting to Sustainable Models of Engagement." (2020). Quality Control As key actors in the healthcare innovation landscape, pharmaceutical and life sci-ences companies have been called on to develop medicines, vaccines and diagnostics for pressing public health challenges. The COVID-19 crisis is one such challenge, but there are many others. For example, MERS, SARS, Ebola, Zika and avian and swine flu are also infectious diseases that represent public health threats. Infectious agents such as anthrax, smallpox and tularemia could present threats in a bioterrorism con-text.1 The general threat to public health that is posed by antimicrobial resistance is also well-recognised as an area in need of pharmaceutical innovation. Innovating in response to these challenges does not always align well with pharmaceutical industry commercial models, shareholder expectations and compe-tition within the industry. However, the expertise, networks and infrastructure that industry has within its reach, as well as public expectations and the moral imperative, make pharmaceutical companies and the wider life sciences sector an indispensable partner in the search for solutions that save lives. This perspective argues for the need to establish more sustainable and scalable ways of incentivising pharmaceu-tical innovation in response to infectious disease threats to public health. It considers both past and current examples of efforts to mobilise pharmaceutical innovation in high commercial risk areas, including in the context of current efforts to respond to the COVID-19 pandemic. In global pandemic crises like COVID-19, the urgency and scale of the crisis – as well as the spotlight placed on pharmaceutical companies – mean that contributing to the search for effective medicines, vaccines or diagnostics is essential for socially responsible companies in the sec-tor.2 It is therefore unsurprising that we are seeing indus-try-wide efforts unfold at unprecedented scale and pace. Whereas there is always scope for more activity, industry is currently contributing in a variety of ways. Examples include pharmaceutical companies donating existing com-pounds to assess their utility in the fight against COVID-19; screening existing compound libraries in-house or with partners to see if they can be repurposed; accelerating tri-als for potentially effective medicine or vaccine candidates; and in some cases rapidly accelerating in-house research and development to discover new treatments or vaccine agents and develop diagnostics tests.3,4 Pharmaceutical companies are collaborating with each other in some of these efforts and participating in global RandD partnerships (such as the Innovative Medicines Initiative effort to accel-erate the development of potential therapies for COVID-19) and supporting national efforts to expand diagnosis and testing capacity and ensure affordable and ready access to potential solutions.3,5,6 The primary purpose of such innovation is to benefit patients and wider population health. Although there are also reputational benefits from involvement that can be realised across the industry, there are likely to be rela-tively few companies that are ‘commercial’ winners. Those who might gain substantial revenues will be under pres-sure not to be seen as profiting from the pandemic. In the United Kingdom for example, GSK has stated that it does not expect to profit from its COVID-19 related activities and that any gains will be invested in supporting research and long-term pandemic preparedness, as well as in developing products that would be affordable in the world’s poorest countries.7 Similarly, in the United States AbbVie has waived intellectual property rights for an existing com-bination product that is being tested for therapeutic poten-tial against COVID-19, which would support affordability and allow for a supply of generics.8,9 Johnson and Johnson has stated that its potential vaccine – which is expected to begin trials – will be available on a not-for-profit basis during the pandemic.10 Pharma is mobilising substantial efforts to rise to the COVID-19 challenge at hand. However, we need to consider how pharmaceutical innovation for responding to emerging infectious diseases can best be enabled beyond the current crisis. Many public health threats (including those associated with other infectious diseases, bioterror-ism agents and antimicrobial resistance) are urgently in need of pharmaceutical innovation, even if their impacts are not as visible to society as COVID-19 is in the imme-diate term. The pharmaceutical industry has responded to previous public health emergencies associated with infec-tious disease in recent times – for example those associated with Ebola and Zika outbreaks.11 However, it has done so to a lesser scale than for COVID-19 and with contribu-tions from fewer companies. Similarly, levels of activity in response to the threat of antimicrobial resistance are still low.12 There are important policy questions as to whether – and how – industry could engage with such public health threats to an even greater extent under improved innova-tion conditions. Case AT COVID aff
No inherency – governments and the WTO are already reducing IP protections for medicines related to COVID-19. WTO No Date WTO, no date, "TRIPS, the intellectual property system and COVID-19," No Publication, https://www.wto.org/english/tratop_e/trips_e/trips_and_covid19_e.htm accessed 8/10/2021JH TRIPS, the intellectual property system and COVID-19 ¶The way in which an intellectual property (IP) system is designed at national or regional levels – and how effectively it is put to work - can be a significant factor in facilitating access to existing technologies and in supporting the creation, manufacturing and dissemination of new technologies, such as medicines, vaccines and medical devices, in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. This question – the relationship of IP to the pandemic response – has sparked a vigorous debate within and beyond the WTO, and is a high priority for technical assistance and policy support for WTO members. This page gives access to background information and current WTO documents (including members’ proposals) on this urgent question. ¶Introduction ¶From the beginning of the pandemic, the pressing need was clear for both the development of new vaccines and treatments, and access to these medicines for all – a global challenge unprecedented in both scope and urgency. ¶Governments and other stakeholders have therefore focused on how innovation mechanisms and tools for enhancing access to medical technologies can contribute to the pandemic response, well beyond a reliance on “business as usual”. This has led to a range of initiatives by international organizations, governments and private actors for the voluntary sharing, pooling or non-assertion of IP rights (IPRs), responding to the spirit of collaboration that dominates the global effort to tackle the pandemic. ¶A range of pro-health policy options and interventions are also available for WTO members under the TRIPS Agreement, as implemented in domestic law. ¶Transparency and the availability of up-to-date information on IP and COVID-19 respond to an immediate and critical need. They contribute to the empirical basis that is essential for policy-making in a rapidly evolving trade landscape in the mutual interest of all stakeholders, including governments and economic operators. ¶In furtherance of this objective, the following sections provide access to useful WTO and other resources that specifically address the interface between IPRs and COVID-19, as well as to the work of the TRIPS Council ¶Work of the TRIPS Council ¶Members have exchanged information and experiences relating to IP measures taken in the context of COVID-19 at the TRIPS Council, and have considered members’ proposals. The interface between IPRs and COVID-19 has been considered in TRIPS Council meetings since July 2020, supported by communications to the TRIPS Council. ¶WTO resources ¶Members have exchanged information and experiences relating to IP measures taken in the context of COVID-19 at the TRIPS Council, and have considered members’ proposals. The interface between IPRs and COVID-19 has been considered in TRIPS Council meetings since July 2020, supported by communications to the TRIPS Council. ¶COVID-19 and world trade ¶COVID-19: Measures regarding trade-related intellectual property rights ¶A non-exhaustive list has been compiled by the WTO Secretariat from official sources and confirmed with WTO members concerned. It represents an informal situation report and an attempt to provide transparency with respect to measures regarding trade-related IPRs taken by WTO members in the context of the COVID-19 crisis. The list is regularly updated. ¶Information Note: The TRIPS Agreement and COVID-19¶This note discusses the role and some of the key contributions that the global IP system, including its policy options and flexibilities as implemented in domestic law, can make to address COVID-19. It also provides an overview of measures taken by members. ¶Information Note: How WTO members have used trade measures to expedite access to COVID-19 critical medical goods and services ¶This note on access to COVID-19 critical medical goods and services includes information on using IPRs and policy tools to facilitate innovation in and access to COVID-19-related technologies. ¶Information Note: Developing and delivering COVID-19 vaccines around the world ¶This note looks at issues with trade impact and discusses trade policy choices, including in the area of intellectual property rights, that may be considered along the vaccine value chain to support access to COVID-19 vaccines. ¶An integrated health, trade and IP approach to respond to the COVID-19 pandemic ¶A standalone section on COVID-19 in the 2020 study jointly published by the World Health Organization (WHO), World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) and WTO, Promoting Access to Medical Technologies and Innovation: Intersections between public health, intellectual property and trade (second edition), maps the multiple challenges posed by the pandemic in relation to the integrated health, trade and IP policy frameworks set out in the study. ¶Working Paper: Patent-related actions taken in WTO members in response to the COVID-19 pandemic¶This working paper provides an overview of the patent landscape of medical treatments and technologies related to COVID-19, and of the patent status of two investigational medical treatments: remdesivir and lopinavir/ritonavir. It presents various patent-related actions taken by legislators, policymakers, industry sectors and civil society organizations in members since the outbreak. Furthermore, it elaborates on patent-related policy options provided by the TRIPS Agreement, and members' national implementation and utilization of these options in their response to the COVID-19 pandemic. 2. No inherency - The Covid vaccine waiver will pass in the status quo—many countries are switching their positions now . Meyer 6/10 David Meyer senior writer for fortune, 6/10 - ("COVID-19 vaccine-patent pressure grows in Europe as lawmakers back temporary waiver," Fortune, 6-10-2021, accessed 7-5-2021, https://fortune.com/2021/06/10/covid-vaccine-patent-waiver-european-parliament-commission-wto/)//ML The temporary suspension of COVID vaccine patents—a move that's intended to help expand manufacturing and speed up the global vaccination drive, thus shortening the pandemic—was originally proposed by South Africa and India last year. Over recent months, it has gained new supporters like the World Health Organization (WHO), the Pope, and, crucially, the Biden administration.¶ However, Europe—home to major players such as BioNTech and AstraZeneca—has resisted the waiver. Just last week, the European Commission submitted an alternative plan to the World Trade Organization (WTO), proposing other measures such as limits on export restrictions, and the compulsory licensing of the patents in some circumstances.¶ That doesn't go far enough, said members of the European Parliament on Thursday, as it passed an amendment calling for a temporary waiver of the WTO's TRIPS Agreement, the global intellectual-property rulebook, in relation to COVID-19 vaccines, treatments, and equipment.¶ The amendment passed by 355 votes to 263, with 71 abstentions. The European Parliament cannot tell the Commission to change its influential tune on the issue, but the vote sent a strong political message nonetheless: Europe, with its many national votes at the WTO, is gradually shifting to the pro-waiver camp.¶ Within the Parliament—the only EU lawmaking institution whose members are directly elected by citizens—the split over the issue has largely followed left-right lines, with leftists such as the Socialists and Democrats (SandD, Parliament's second-biggest voting bloc) backing the waiver and those on the right, such as the European People's Party (EPP, the biggest bloc), opposing it.¶ "With today’s vote, the European Parliament calls on the Commission to finally do the right thing and save lives by supporting the lifting of patents for COVID-19 vaccines and medical equipment," said Kathleen Van Brempt, the SandD's lead negotiator on the subject, in a statement after the vote. "The TRIPS waiver may not prove to be a miracle solution, but it is one of the essential building blocks of a strong global vaccination campaign. Exceptional situations call for exceptional measures.¶ "The alternative proposal submitted by the European Commission to the WTO falls short in the face of the epochal challenge we are facing," she added.¶ But it is not just the European Commission that is becoming more isolated on the issue. Germany, too, is increasingly lonely in its opposition to the waiver.¶ French President Emmanuel Macron, who has previously sided with Germany, traveled to South Africa a couple of weeks ago to discuss the waiver with President Cyril Ramaphosa. On Wednesday, just ahead of the G7 summit, he flipped and joined the patent-suspension camp. That means at least two G7 leaders (also including U.S. President Joe Biden) now favor the waiver.¶ Add to that the fact that the WTO agreed on Wednesday to fully debate the waiver—a step that the EU and some other countries had previously resisted—and it seems the tide may be turning.¶ There is still a way to go, though. World Bank President David Malpass slammed the waiver idea on Wednesday, saying “it would run the risk of reducing the innovation and the RandD” in the pharmaceutical sector. (Malpass, a Trump appointee, is therefore now in opposition to the current White House.)¶ 3. IPR is key to stopping counterfeits. Kilbride 2020 Patrick, vice president of International Intellectual Property for the Global Intellectual Property Center at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, IP Watchdog, "Calls for WTO to Suspend IP Rights for Vaccine Innovation Would Jeopardize Incredible Progress" December 9, https://www.ipwatchdog.com/2020/12/09/calls-wto-suspend-ip-rights-vaccine-innovation-jeopardize-incredible-progress/id=128085/ Finally: A safe, legitimate marketplace. Patents facilitate a market for innovative medicines, throughout the development stage, as well as in commercialization. Licensing arrangements facilitate the types of collaborations that have proven so successful in 2020; they also ensure that third-party manufacturers are making, using, and selling COVID-19 solutions safely and ethically. Without it, counterfeiters and other bad actors could put shoddy, unreliable, and downright dangerous dupes on the market, all the while marketing them as legitimate products. It’s literally a matter of life and death: Thousands, if not millions, of people die each year at the hands of counterfeit drugs. Turns case – increased vaccine hesitancy means you’ll never solve. Baschuk 2021 Bryce, reporter for Bloomberg News, "Covid-19 pandemic: WTO holiday from vaccine talks draws calls for action" July 26, https://www.business-standard.com/article/current-affairs/covid-19-pandemic-wto-holiday-from-vaccine-talks-draws-calls-for-action-121072601721_1.html Specifically, opponents to the waiver say it would create a chaotic patchwork of laws, unravel existing industry partnerships, lead to a supply crunch for scarce vaccine inputs and inject even more uncertainty into already complex arrangements.¶ There’s also the possibility that an IP waiver could result in the production of counterfeit and substandard medicines, which could increase vaccine hesitancy that’s already pervasive in even the world’s wealthiest nations. 4. Turn: Reductions in IPR could result in unsafe or ineffective medicines. Turns solvency because too many people will be afraid of the vaccine to achieve herd immunity. Crosby et al. 21Daniel Crosby, Evan Diamond, Isabel Fernandez De La Cuesta, Jamieson Greer, Jeffrey Telep, Brian White; Crosby specializes in international trade, investment and matters related to public international law. Diamond is a partner on our Intellectual Property, Patent, Trademark and Copyright Litigation team.; 3-5-2021; "Group of Nearly 60 WTO Members Seek Unprecedented Waiver from WTO Intellectual Property Protection for COVID-related Medical Products"; https://www.jdsupra.com/legalnews/group-of-nearly-60-wto-members-seek-2523821/, JD Supra, accessed 7-21-2021; JPark Waiver risks uncontrolled use of patented technologies, without improving vaccine access. Pharmaceutical companies can provide, and have provided, licenses to distribute or scale-up production of COVID-19 vaccines and therapies at reduced cost. Such license agreements allow for expanded access in low- and middle-income countries, while also setting reasonable parameters so that patents and other IP rights are used to address the specific medical needs of the COVID-19 pandemic at hand, and not for other purposes. License agreements also allow for orderly technology transfer, including of unpatented “trade secret” information and other critical “know-how,” that may be essential to efficiently producing and scaling-up safe and effective versions of technologically complex vaccines and biologic drug products. Under the present TRIPS waiver proposal, however, member countries could try to exploit an extraordinarily broad scope of IP and copy patented technologies so long as they are “in relation to prevention, containment or treatment of COVID-19.” For example, under an expansive reading of the proposed waiver language, a member country could try to produce patented pharmaceutical compounds that have other indicated uses predating COVID-19, if such compounds had later been studied or experimentally used for potential symptomatic relief or antiviral activity in COVID-19 patients. The same risks may be faced by manufacturers of patented materials or devices that have multiple uses predating COVID-19, but also may be used as “personal protective equipment” or components thereof, or in other measures arguably relating to COVID-19 “prevention” or “containment.” At the same time, it is unclear how the proposed TRIPS waiver could provide the technology transfer and know-how critical for making the complex molecules and formulations constituting the various COVID-19 vaccines. Vaccine manufacture undertaken by an unauthorized party without the proper processes and controls could result in a different product that is potentially ineffective or results in unwanted health consequences. And even if an unauthorized manufacturer could overcome those substantial hurdles to reverse-engineer and scale up a safe and effective vaccine copy, it would likely take substantial time and a series of failures to do so. Notably, several of the original COVID-19 vaccine developers have recently faced low product yield and other manufacturing challenges during pre-commercial scale-up efforts and the initial months of commercial production. 5. No solvency – There is no IP barrier in most countries. The fact that they are not manufacturing vaccine shows that they can’t without compulsory licensing. Mercurio 21 Mercurio 2/12 - Bryan Mercurio; Chinese University of Hong Kong - Faculty of Law, ; 2-12-2021; "Wto Waiver From Intellectual Property Protection For Covid-19 Vaccines And Treatments: A Critical Review (February 12, 2021)”; Virginia Journal Of International Law Online (Forthcoming 2021), Available At Ssrn: Https://Ssrn.Com/Abstract=3789820 Or Http://Dx.Doi.Org/10.2139/Ssrn.3789820"; https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3789820, accessed 7-21-2021; JPark Second, the proposed waiver will do nothing to address the problem of lack of capacity or the transfer of technology and goodwill. Pharmaceutical companies have not applied for patents in the majority of developing countries – in such countries, any manufacturer is free to produce and market the vaccine inside the territory of that country or to export the vaccine to other countries where patents have not been filed.33 Patents cannot be the problem in the countries where no patent applications have been filed, but the lack of production in such countries points to the real problem – these countries lack manufacturing capacity and capability. While advanced pharmaceutical companies will have the technology, know-how and readiness to manufacture, store and transport complex vaccine formulations, such factories and logistics exist in only a handful of countries.34 Regardless of whether an IP waiver is granted, the remaining countries will be left without enhanced vaccine access and still reliant on imported supplies. With prices for the vaccine already very low, it is doubtful that generic suppliers will be able to provide the vaccine at significantly lower prices. Under such a scenario, the benefit of the waiver would go not to the countries in need but to the generic supplier who would not need to pay the licence fee or royalty to the innovator. Thus, the waiver would simply serve to benefit advanced generic manufacturers, most of which are located in a handful of countries, including China and Brazil as well as (unsurprisingly) India and South Africa. Countries would perhaps be better off obtaining the vaccine from suppliers that have negotiated a voluntary licence from the patent holder, as such licences include provisions for the transfer of technology, know-how and ongoing quality assurance support. 6. No solvency – the problem is supply. IP has already been voluntarily licensed. Tabarrok 21 - Alex Tabarrok (Bartley J. Madden Chair in Economics at the Mercatus Center and am a professor of economics at George Mason University). “Patents are Not the Problem!” Marginal Revolution. 6 May 2021. JDN. https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2021/05/ip-is-not-the-constraint.html For the last year and a half I have been shouting from the rooftops, “invest in capacity, build more factories, shore up the supply lines, spend billions to save trillions.” Fortunately, some boffins in the Biden administration have found a better way, “the US supports the waiver of IP protections on COVID-19 vaccines to help end the pandemic.”¶ Waive IP protections. So simple. Why didn’t I think of that???¶ Patents are not the problem. All of the vaccine manufacturers are trying to increase supply as quickly as possible. Billions of doses are being produced–more than ever before in the history of the world. Licenses are widely available. AstraZeneca have licensed their vaccine for production with manufactures around the world, including in India, Brazil, Mexico, Argentina, China and South Africa. JandJ’s vaccine has been licensed for production by multiple firms in the United States as well as with firms in Spain, South Africa and France. Sputnik has been licensed for production by firms in India, China, South Korea, Brazil and pending EMA approval with firms in Germany and France. Sinopharm has been licensed in the UAE, Egypt and Bangladesh. Novavax has licensed its vaccine for production in South Korea, India, and Japan and it is desperate to find other licensees but technology transfer isn’t easy and there are limited supplies of raw materials:¶ Virtually overnight, Novavax set up a network of outside manufacturers more ambitious than one outside executive said he’s ever seen, but they struggled at times to transfer their technology there amid pandemic travel restrictions. They were kicked out of one factory by the same government that’s bankrolled their effort. Competing with larger competitors, they’ve found themselves short on raw materials as diverse as Chilean tree bark and bioreactor bags. They signed a deal with India’s Serum Institute to produce many of their COVAX doses but now face the realistic chance that even when Serum gets to full capacity — and they are behind — India’s government, dealing with the world’s worst active outbreak, won’t let the shots leave the country.¶ Plastic bags are a bigger bottleneck than patents. The US embargo on vaccine supplies to India was precisely that the Biden administration used the DPA to prioritize things like bioreactor bags and filters to US suppliers and that meant that India’s Serum Institute was having trouble getting its production lines ready for Novavax. CureVac, another potential mRNA vaccine, is also finding it difficult to find supplies due to US restrictions (which means supplies are short everywhere). As Derek Lowe said:¶ Abolishing patents will not provide more shaker bags or more Chilean tree bark, nor provide more of the key filtration materials needed for production. These processes have a lot of potential choke points and rate-limiting steps in them, and there is no wand that will wave that complexity away.¶ Technology transfer has been difficult for AstraZeneca–which is one reason they have had production difficulties–and their vaccine uses relatively well understood technology. The mRNA technology is new and has never before been used to produce at scale. Pfizer and Moderna had to build factories and distribution systems from scratch. There are no mRNA factories idling on the sidelines. If there were, Moderna or Pfizer would be happy to license since they are producing in their own factories 24 hours a day, seven days a week (monopolies restrict supply, remember?). Why do you think China hasn’t yet produced an mRNA vaccine? Hint: it isn’t fear about violating IP. Moreover, even Moderna and Pfizer don’t yet fully understand their production technology, they are learning by doing every single day. Moderna has said that they won’t enforce their patents during the pandemic but no one has stepped up to produce because no one else can.¶ The US trade representative’s announcement is virtue signaling to the anti-market left and will do little to nothing to increase supply.
7. No solvency - too many jurisdictional barriers, but the squo solves through cooperation and competition. Mercurio 6/24 Bryan Mercurio Simon F.S. Li Professor of Law, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Shatin, Hong Kong, 6-24-2021, "The IP Waiver for COVID-19: Bad Policy, Bad Precedent," IIC - International Review of Intellectual Property and Competition Law, https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s40319-021-01083-5 accessed 8/12/2021 JH The role of intellectual property rights (IPRs) and access to medicines is contentious. On the one hand, IPRs encourage investment, innovation and the advancement of health science. On the other hand, the limited-term monopoly rights can result in artificially high prices and become a barrier to access to medicines. While the wisdom of the IPRs system has at times been tested, it has proven its value in the current COVID-19 pandemic as IPRs played a large role in the rapid (and unprecedented) development and availability of multiple vaccines. Despite the success, India and South Africa proposed that the World Trade Organization (WTO) waive IPRs under the Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS Agreement) in order to increase access to vaccines and other COVID-19-related technologies.Footnote1 ¶The proposal, tabled at a meeting of the TRIPS Council in October 2020, calls on Members to waive IPRs relating to and having an impact on the “prevention, containment or treatment of COVID-19”.Footnote2 The proposal attracted support from the majority of developing country Members,Footnote3 but was opposed by a handful of Members including the United States (US).Footnote4 Given that consensus could not be reached within the deadline of 90 days as set out in Art. IX:3 of the Agreement Establishing the WTO, Members agreed to keep the waiver proposal on the agenda of the TRIPS Council in 2021.Footnote5 ¶On 5 May 2021, the US reversed its position and announced that it would support a waiver for COVID-19 vaccines.Footnote6 To be clear, this does not mean that the US supported the waiver as proposed by India and South Africa. Instead, the US has simply agreed to negotiate the perimeters of a waiver. Others, including the European Union (EU), Canada, Australia, Norway, Switzerland, the United Kingdom (UK) and even leading developing countries such as Brazil, Chile and Mexico remain opposed or lukewarm on the waiver.Footnote7 The US dropping opposition does not mean the concerns of other Members will simply disappear – one would hope that these nations opposed the waiver for valid reasons and did not simply blindly follow the US. Indeed, many of the above-listed Members remain unconvinced that even such a draconian step as a waiver of IPRs would accomplish the goal of increased vaccine production.Footnote8 For its part, the EU continues to favour an approach which makes better use of existing flexibilities available in the TRIPS Agreement.Footnote9 ¶Thus, those expecting quick agreement on the waiver will be disappointed. Negotiations at the WTO are always difficult and lengthy, and US Trade Representative Katherine Tai acknowledged that the “negotiations will take time given the consensus-based nature of the institution and the complexity of the issues involved”.Footnote10 Issues of negotiation will include the scope of the waiver. Whereas the original proposal and its amended form extend the waiver beyond patents and vaccines to include nearly all forms of IP (i.e. copyright,Footnote11 industrial designs and trade secrets) as well as to all “health products and technologies including diagnostics, therapeutics, vaccines, medical devices, personal protective equipment, their materials or components, and their methods and means of manufacture for the prevention, treatment or containment of COVID-19”Footnote12 (with no requirement on how or the extent to which they are related to or useful in combatting COVID-19), the US and others seem to support a waiver limited to patents and vaccines.Footnote13 The length of the waiver will also be a contentious negotiating issue, with proponents seeking a virtual indefinite waiver lasting until the Membership agrees by consensus that it is no longer required – meaning even a single Member’s objection to ending the waiver would mean the waiver continues to remain in forceFootnote14 – as will the request that any action claimed to be taken under the waiver is outside the scope of the WTO’s dispute settlement mechanism.Footnote15 These provisions will almost certainly be opposed by other Members, who would perhaps agree to a time-limited waiver which could be extended rather than an unchallengeable indefinite waiver which will be difficult to reverse. The proposal also fails to mention anything in relation to transparency and notification requirements and lacks safeguards against abuse or diversion. These points will likely also prove contentious in the negotiations. ¶With so many initial divergences and as yet undiscussed issues, the negotiations at best could be completed by the time of the next WTO Ministerial Conference, scheduled to begin on 20 November 2021. There is precedent in this regard, as previous TRIPS negotiations involving IP and pharmaceuticals were not fully resolved until the days before the Ministerial Conferences (in 2003 and 2005).Footnote16 There is also a chance that the negotiations will continue past the calendar year 2021. ¶The chance for a swift negotiation diminished with the release of a revised proposal by India and South Africa on 22 May 2021. As mentioned above, the proposal contains no limit as to product coverage, scope, notification requirements or safeguards and proposes that the waiver will remain in effect for what could be an indefinite period. This was not a proposal designed to engender quick negotiations and a solution. Instead, the proposal perhaps reveals India’s and South Africa’s true intent to use the COVID-19 pandemic as an excuse to roll-back IPRs rather than a good-faith effort to rapidly increase access to lifesaving vaccines and treatments around the world. ¶It is not only the length of time which is an issue but also the ultimate impact of the waiver. A waiver simply means that a WTO Member would not be in violation of its WTO obligations if it does not protect and enforce the COVID-19-related IPRs for the duration of the waiver. The waiver would thus allow Members to deviate from their international obligations but not obligate Members to suspend protection and enforcement of the IPRs. Members like the US who support the waiver may not implement the necessary domestic legislation to waive IPRs within the jurisdiction. It is questionable whether the US could even legally implement the waiver given that IPRs are a matter of constitutional law.Footnote17 ¶The US announcement remains meaningful, however, for two reasons. First, it signals a departure from the longstanding and bipartisan support for the pharmaceutical industry, which for decades has been instrumental in setting the IP and trade agenda.Footnote18 Second, it sends a strong signal that the US does not oppose others from waiving patent protection for vaccines. This shift may also be part of a broader and alternative strategy to increase vaccine production and distribution, whereby the US is not viewing or supporting waiver negotiations as a legal tool but more so as a threat to encourage vaccine innovators to increase production. In essence, the desired reaction would be that the IP holders increase efforts to license, transfer technology and expand manufacturing – exactly what the world needs at this time. ¶Alan Beattie, writing in the Financial Times, believes that even the proponents of the waiver desire this outcome: “having talked to the proponents, the original proposal was always a tactical position designed to start a debate, identify possible support and flush out opponents rather than a likely outcome. To that end, it seems to have worked rather well.”Footnote19 India’s negotiator to the TRIPS Agreement and longtime WTO staffer, Jayashree Watal, agrees, stating the proposal is an “indirect attempt to put pressure on the original manufacturers to cooperate and license production to companies in their countries”.Footnote20 This view makes sense, as the proponents (and their supporters) have not even pointed to one credible instance where IPRs have blocked the production of a COVID-19 vaccine. Moreover, it is well known that the leading vaccines using mRNA are difficult to reproduce and having the “blueprints” does not guarantee safe and effective production. Simply stated, if a pastry chef provides instructions on how to bake a cake, the cake they bake is still going to be better than cakes baked by novices using the exact same recipe. The know-how and trade secrets are the key ingredient to the manufacture of quality, safe and effective pharmaceuticals or vaccines, and not only is it not transferred through compulsory licenses but it is hard to imagine how any government would force the transfer of such information even under a waiver. For this reason, instead of encouraging production everywhere – including in locations where safety and efficacy standards are virtually nonexistent – and accepting that there will be a flood of substandard vaccines coming onto the world market (with devastating effects) it is much more sensible to find out where potential manufacturing capabilities exist and find ways to exploit them and scale them up. ¶When asked if a waiver would improve vaccine availability and equity, Watal responded: “No. It won’t. That’s clear.”Footnote21 I share Watal’s view and do not support a TRIPS waiver for IPRs or even a limited waiver for patents. With evidence mounting that “what the proposal … will definitely not achieve is speeding up the Covid-19 vaccination rate in India or other parts of the Global South”Footnote22 I refuse to sacrifice academic integrity by supporting a proposal simply because it is gaining traction in some circles.Footnote23 IPRs played a key role in delivering vaccines within a year of the discovery of a new pathogen; it seems inexplicable that the world would abandon the system without any evidence that IPRs are limiting during the current crisis.Footnote24 Moreover, innovators have been generous in licensing technology transfer and production and one would be hard-pressed to find credible reports of qualified generic producers being refused a license. This is not surprising, since multiple competing vaccines are on the market it simply does not make economic sense for innovators to refuse a license – the generic manufacturer would simply obtain a license (and market share) and pay royalties to a competitor. ¶Instead, I support efforts to enable prompt and effective use of existing flexibilities in the TRIPS Agreement and concerted and coordinated efforts involving governments and the private sector to ensure all qualified generic producers willing and capable of manufacturing vaccines are doing so and to create supply by working to bring more facilities up to standard. Cooperation will not only lead us out of this pandemic but also put us in a better position to deal with the next one. Killing the goose that laid the golden egg may seem appealing to some in the short term but will only ensure that no eggs are delivered in the next pandemic. 8. A TRIPS waiver for Covid takes too long---only vaccine donations solve. Fabricius 6/25 Peter Fabricius institute for security services consultant, 6/20 - ("South Africa: Is Ramaphosa Tripping Over a TRIPS Waiver?," allAfrica, 6/25/2021, accessed 6-30-2021, https://allafrica.com/stories/202106260001.html)//ML His fervour is prompting some suspicion that the waiver campaign is an ideological issue for South Africa and others on the left - who have always been suspicious of big pharma - rather than an objective solution to a crisis. That's because a TRIPS waiver cannot possibly rescue Africa from the immediate grips of the pandemic.¶ Even the mRNA project in South Africa would take at least around 12 months before manufacture can begin, WHO Chief Scientist Soumya Swaminathan said. And this would be with voluntary licensing and full technological cooperation and training from the patents' owners. Manufacturing vaccines from scratch and without that cooperation through a TRIPS waiver would take much longer.¶ The only immediate remedy is a vigorous campaign to pressure rich countries to donate vaccines¶ Yogesh Pai, Assistant Professor at the National Law University in Delhi, said the TRIPS waiver proposal was 'simplistic' in assuming that allowing the formulae of companies making vaccines to be copied would automatically enable other manufacturers to produce COVID-19 vaccines quickly.¶ Pai said most complex technologies, such as vaccines, comprised not only the knowledge, which is patented to prevent copying. It also involved undisclosed information and know-how about quality control measures for production and clinical data required for regulatory clearances.¶ An intellectual property waiver wouldn't give another company access to this deeper level of know-how. Only a cooperative agreement in which the technology owner helped the new manufacturer produce the vaccines could do this, Pai suggested.¶ Prashant Yadav, an expert on medical supply chains at Harvard Medical School, told ISS Today that it would probably take two to three years to produce a vaccine via a TRIPS waiver. First, the waiver would need to be secured, and then the necessary processes worked out without the help of the original developer.¶ Can Africa wait that long? At the launch of the mRNA project this week, Michael Ryan, Head of the WHO's Health Emergencies Programme, stressed that manufacturing COVID-19 vaccines in Africa, while commendable, wouldn't address the immediate crisis. The only solution was for rich countries to stop hoarding vaccines immediately. 'It will be a catastrophic moral failure at global level if we do not do that,' Ryan warned.¶ Yadav says the urgent strategy should be reallocating doses purchased by countries that don't need them and expanding vaccine production through voluntary licensing and tech transfer from the originator companies.¶ Of course, Ramaphosa could be right in suspecting that rich countries aren't altruistic enough to donate their 'surplus' vaccines, and so Africa and the rest of the global south must become more self-reliant. No solvency – The Last Mile Problem. In the squo, pharmaceutical companies have no incentive to ensure drugs are distributed and used properly. HIF incentivizes them to ensure rational use and positive health outcomes. Hollis and Pogge ’08 - Aidan Hollis Associate Professor of Economics, the University of Calgary and Thomas Pogge Leitner Professor of Philosophy and International Affairs, Yale University, “The Health Impact Fund Making New Medicines Accessible for All,” Incentives for Global Health (2008
As highlighted throughout this book, one main barrier to access to available drugs is price. When manufacturers’ prices are lower, then the prices consumers are charged through both public and private distribution systems will also be lower. Affordable manufacturers’ prices are therefore crucial to improved access. But manufacturers’ prices are not the sole determinant of the cost to the consumer. Import duties, port clearage charges, inspection fees, pharmacy board fees, central and regional government taxes, storage and transportation costs, and wholesale and retail markups add substantially to the manufacturers’ price.1 These supplementary costs are not always passed on to the consumer in their entirety, since the state or the nonprofi t sector may provide subsidies to consumers. But in this case the financial burdens placed on the state or the nonprofi t sector are increased by high prices. Even where supplementary costs are only partially passed on to consumers, they can significantly aff ect the aff ordability of essential medicines. Price, while crucial, is not the only determinant of access. In many low-income countries, weak health infrastructure signifi cantly limits the extent to which essential drugs are accessible. For example, Ministries of Health are often reluctant to distribute drugs to hospitals and health clinics if they believe these facilities lack the trained and motivated medical staff or the physical assets needed to ensure that the drugs are properly stored, prescribed and dispensed.2 Alternatively, a Ministry of Health’s administrative systems may be such that it is not able to manage the efficient distribution of the drugs that are available to it, resulting in shortages, particularly in less accessible parts of the country. Weaknesses in transportation systems and drug management practices can also result in spoilage, thereby compromising the quality of available drugs.3 On the demand side, weak infrastructure oft en imposes significant costs and time burdens on poor people in need of health treatment. For example, patients may have long distances to travel, and in many countries, “informal payments” or bribes are required to obtain access to subsidized medicines (Lewis, 2007). The second main element of the last mile problem is the failure to use correctly the drugs to which patients do have access. The WHO estimates that worldwide 50 percent of all medicines are prescribed, dispensed, or sold incorrectly, and that about half of all patients do not take medicines as directed (WHO 2004b, 75). This incorrect use exacts a huge toll in increased morbidity and mortality, in addition to the toll exacted by lack of access. Estimates suggest that between 60 and 90 percent of household health expenditure in developing countries is on medicines (DFID 2006, 1). Poor prescribing and dispensing practices, and weak adherence by patients to treatment requirements, means that much of this spending brings little in the way of health benefits. It can actually be harmful, increasing the likelihood that certain diseases will develop resistance to the drugs that are used to treat them.5 These problems occur not only in developing, but also developed countries. Common types of incorrect medicine use include (WHO 2004b, 76): • use of too many types of medicines per patient (polypharmacy); • prescription of antimicrobials in inadequate dosage or for inadequate periods or the prescription of antibiotics for non-bacterial infections (the WHO estimates that around two-thirds of all antibiotics worldwide are sold without prescription); • use of injections where oral formulations would be better, increasing the transmission of hepatitis, HIV/AIDS and other blood-borne diseases; • failure to prescribe in accordance with clinical guidelines (survey data show that between 1990 and 2004 only around 40 percent of primary care level patients in Africa, Asia, and Latin America were treated in accordance with clinical guidelines for a number of common conditions, with no improvement over this period; WHO 2006c, 2); and • inappropriate self-medication, oft en of prescription-only drugs. A key cause of incorrect use is the lack of suitably qualifi ed medical personnel available to developing country health systems. Recent fi gures show that the number of health workers per 1,000 people was only 2.3 in Africa and 4.3 in South and East Asia, compared to 18.9 and 24.8 in Europe and the Americas respectively.6 Moreover, many developing-country health workers are poorly trained and paid and are not given adequate administrative support. This in turn contributes to low morale and a high incidence of absenteeism. This problem is especially acute in rural and remote areas. Health facilities that are understaffed or staffed by inadequately trained or motivated workers are very poorly placed to meet the requirements of rational drug use (Das, Hammer, and Leonard 2008). The WHO estimates that 57 countries suffer critical shortfalls of doctors, nurses, and midwives that prevent these countries from meeting even the most basic standards of health care (WHO 2006d, 5, 11–12). This human-resource crisis is complicated by the fact that in many low-income countries staff salaries take up an inordinately large share of the health budget, leaving insufficient funds for non-staff requirements such as vaccines, essential drugs, diagnostic tools and infrastructure maintenance. Public sector health payrolls are oft en poorly administered, and phenomena such as so-called ghost workers (people who are on payrolls but do not provide the relevant services) result in significant inefficiencies. Resource-constrained countries are confronted with the need to reduce the share of the wage bill in their health budgets while increasing the number and quality of health professionals, particularly in poorer areas. In many cases, greater efficiency in the use of existing resources, while necessary, will not be sufficient to remedy these problems entirely. There is no escaping the need for significantly larger amounts of resources to be made available to developing country health sectors.7 While public sector and not-for-profit private providers are key parts of the health sector in most low-income countries, the for-profit private sector— particularly in the form of private drug outlets—is often the first point of call for large parts of the populations of these countries when they fall sick. In Cambodia, for example, it is estimated that more than 70 percent of the population first approach private drug sellers when they fall sick, and that 75 percent of legal antimalarials are sold through the private sector. In Senegal, four private wholesalers linked to pharmacies and chemists represent nearly 65 percent of all sales of antimalarials (Institute of Medicine 2004, 40–41).8 Worldwide, an increasing share of health care is being delivered through the private sector (WHO 2006c, 4). Especially in low-income countries, governments often regulate private-sector drug outlets poorly. Even where suitable regulations and licensing procedures exist, the supervisory and enforcement support needed to ensure compliance is often lacking. Coupled with poor training of staff in private drug outlets, these regulatory, supervisory and enforcement shortcomings result in poor diagnosis and dispensing practices, and subsequently in the sale of unnecessary or contra-indicated drugs or incomplete courses of medication. This wastes resources, compromises successful treatment, and can lead to adverse patient reactions and the development of drug-resistant disease forms. The incentives that private sellers have to maximize sales regardless of clinical requirements add to the likelihood of incorrect use. These incentives are present not only in the private sector, but apply where the prescribing and dispensing functions are combined, as is sometimes the case in some public health facilities in low-income countries. Th is point notwithstanding, survey data available to the WHO show that, in developing and transition countries, the use of medicines is signifi - cantly worse in the private than in the public sector (WHO 2006c, 4).9 Even where drugs are correctly prescribed, they are often sold in inappropriate packaging, with inadequate instructions for patient use, or both. Th is creates serious problems when patients are illiterate or ill-informed about the implications of not taking medication as directed. Th is is particularly problematic with respect to medicines whose partial completion is oft en suffi cient to relieve symptoms. The result is a serious problem with patient adherence to the requirements of their drug treatment. Drug prices are also a factor in lack of patient adherence to treatment regimens. Poor patients may purchase insufficient amounts of the medicine, in an attempt to economize. A 2006 WHO report suggests that, unless effective action is taken, the problem of incorrect drug use is likely to get worse. This is so for two reasons. First, an increasing share of health care worldwide is being provided through the private sector. In developing countries and countries in transition to a market economy, provision through the private sector is likely to result in a higher incidence of incorrect drug use than provision through the public sector, which is important given the prominence of private drug sellers as a first point of call. Second, many large-scale initiatives to treat diseases of major public health importance, such as malaria, HIV/ AIDS, and tuberculosis, concentrate primarily on access and give insufficient attention to the problem of irrational use (WHO 2006c, 4). Irrational use also occurs in developed countries. As Avorn (2004) notes, there is a paucity of reliable clinical trials comparing the risks and benefits of different medicines, and at the same time, pharmaceutical companies’ marketing muscle sometimes leads to poor prescribing choices by clinicians.
9/18/21
HH NC Rd 2
Tournament: Alta | Round: 2 | Opponent: Monta Vista RD | Judge: Doug Welton On Case Turn: More strikes lead to backlash bills that weaken unions – empirically proven. Partelow ‘19 Lisette Partelow Lisette Partelow is the director of K-12 Strategic Initiatives at American Progress. Her previous experience includes teaching first grade in Washington, D.C., working as a senior legislative assistant for Rep. Dave Loebsack (D-IA), and working as a legislative associate at the Alliance for Excellent Education. She has also worked at the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Education and Labor and the American Institutes for Research. “Analysis: A Looming Legislative Backlash Against Teacher Strikes? Why Walkouts Could Become Illegal in Some States, With Strikers Facing Fines, Jail, or Loss of Their License”. 02-18-2019. The 74. https://www.the74million.org/article/analysis-a-looming-legislative-backlash-against-teacher-strikes-why-walkouts-could-become-illegal-in-some-states-with-strikers-facing-fines-jail-or-loss-of-their-license/. Accessed 11-3-2021; MJen In 2018 and 2019, after a decade of disinvestment in education that led to stagnant teacher salaries, policymakers have introduced proposals in states across the country to begin reinvesting, spurred in part by teacher walkouts and activism nationwide. While it is wonderful to finally see broad support for raising teacher salaries and investing in public schools, a predictable backlash has also emerged. Legislators in some states that were hotbeds of teacher activism are introducing bills to explicitly prohibit walkouts or punish teachers who participate, often with a sprinkling of additional anti-union provisions. Weakening unions and refusing to invest in education are long-standing conservative tenets, and these bills are evidence that we should expect conservative policymakers to return to them as soon as they believe them to be politically viable. The consequences of a decade of education funding cuts came into sharp relief last spring, after teachers staged walkouts in half a dozen states. The decade of disinvestment in education had its roots in the Great Recession, when many states were forced to drastically cut their K-12 education funding. But as the recovery got underway, many governors — particularly in red states — made intentional policy choices to cut taxes for wealthy residents and corporations rather than allow education funding to rebound to pre-recession levels as revenue increased. As a result, teacher wages stagnated, school budgets were strapped, and expenses such as building repairs and learning materials were deferred year after year. By 2018, reports of crumbling schools, students learning from decades-old textbooks, high teacher turnover, and staff shortages in these states became common. Teachers had reached their boiling point. The teacher walkouts have been very effective. Though they were a last resort, they finally got lawmakers’ attention in states that had seen the most chronic and severe cuts to education. In the states where teachers walked out, governors who hadn’t historically supported education funding agreed to enact significant pay raises and increases in education funding. For example, in Arizona, Republican Gov. Doug Ducey was forced to sign off on a teacher pay bill he had previously opposed that provided a 20 percent raise to the state’s teachers — some of the lowest-paid in the nation — and invested an additional $100 million in schools in the state. And now, in several states with low teacher pay that have so far avoided major protests, some governors have proposed salary increases. Remarkably, much of this movement is happening in deep-red states with historically low education spending. In South Carolina, Gov. Henry McMaster wants to give teachers a 5 percent pay raise; in Texas, Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick has proposed a $5,000 increase; and in Georgia, Gov. Brian Kemp has proposed a $3,000 increase. In all three of these states, teachers are paid less than the national average. It’s likely that last year’s walkouts nudged these governors to consider teacher pay in a way that they wouldn’t have otherwise. Though it goes against traditional conservative principles, supporting these raises is smart politics for these governors. There is widespread public support for increasing teacher pay, particularly in the states where walkouts occurred. But even as some conservative policymakers agree to raise teacher salaries, as the 2019 legislative sessions have begun, others in Arizona, Oklahoma, and West Virginia have introduced bills that would make walkouts illegal and penalize teachers with fines, loss of their teaching licenses, or even jail time. Some of the bills also contain provisions designed specifically to weaken teachers unions, such as a requirement that teachers must opt in to dues each year, which sponsors hope will reduce membership by adding an extra step to the process. Legislators in walkout states have also introduced stand-alone proposals designed to make union membership more difficult and, therefore, less likely, such as a prohibition on districts withholding union dues from teachers’ paychecks. These backlash bills hint at a much more familiar conservative education agenda of slashing funding and working to weaken teachers unions. After all, it is this agenda that led to stagnant teacher salaries, deplorable conditions in many school buildings, and consequences for students whose schools were chronically underfunded in the first place. Supporting increases to teacher pay and greater investment in schools is the right thing to do for America’s students. Unfortunately, this wave of backlash makes clear that for some policymakers, it’s all about politics — and as soon as they have the chance, they’ll once again slash education funding and attack hardworking teachers.
Turn again: The right to strike just leads businesses to take stronger steps to stop unionization. Gordon Lafer, 20 - ("Fear at work: An inside account of how employers threaten, intimidate, and harass workers to stop them from exercising their right to collective bargaining," Economic Policy Institute, 7-23-2020, https://www.epi.org/publication/fear-at-work-how-employers-scare-workers-out-of-unionizing/)//va NLRB elections are fundamentally framed by one-sided control over communication, with no free-speech rights for workers. Under current law, employers may require workers to attend mass anti-union meetings as often as once a day (mandatory meetings at which the employer delivers anti-union messaging are dubbed “captive audience meetings” in labor law). Not only is the union not granted equal time, but pro-union employees may be required to attend on condition that they not ask questions; those who speak up despite this condition can be legally fired on the spot.19 The most recent data show that nearly 90 of employers force employees to attend such anti-union campaign rallies, with the average employer holding 10 such mandatory meetings during the course of an election campaign.20 ¶ In addition to group meetings, employers typically have supervisors talk one-on-one with each of their direct subordinates.21 In these conversations, the same person who controls one’s schedule, assigns job duties, approves vacation requests, grants raises, and has the power to terminate employees “at will” conveys how important it is that their underlings oppose unionization. As one longtime consultant explained, a supervisor’s message is especially powerful because “the warnings…come from…the people counted on for that good review and that weekly paycheck.”22 ¶ Within this lopsided campaign environment, the employer’s message typically focuses on a few key themes: unions will drive employers out of business, unions only care about extorting dues payments from workers, and unionization is futile because employees can’t make management do something it doesn’t want to do.23 Many of these arguments are highly deceptive or even mutually contradictory. For instance, the dues message stands in direct contradiction to management’s warnings that unions inevitably lead to strikes and unemployment. If a union were primarily interested in extracting dues money from workers, it would never risk a strike or bankruptcy, because no one pays dues when they are on strike or out of work. But in an atmosphere in which pro-union employees have little effective right of reply, these messages may prove extremely powerful. ¶ It is common for unionization drives to start with two-thirds of employees supporting unionization and still end in a “no” vote. This reversal points to the anti-democratic dynamics of NLRB elections: voters are not being convinced of the merits of remaining without representation—they are being intimidated into the belief that unionization is at best futile and at worst dangerous. When a large national survey asked workers who had been through an election to name “the most important reason people voted against union representation,” the single most common response was management pressure, including fear of job loss.24 Those who vote on this basis are not expressing a preference to remain unrepresented. Indeed, many might still prefer unionization if they believed it could work. Where fear is the motivator, what is captured in the snapshot of the ballot is not preference but despair. ¶To understand what union elections look like in reality, we have profiled two cases in which workers sought to create a union and met with a harsh (and typical) employer backlash. In both cases—a tire plant in Georgia and a satellite TV company in Texas—the employer response ranges from illegally firing union activists to engaging in acts of coercion and intimidation that are illegal in any normal election to public office but are allowed under the NLRA. ¶
The turns outweigh the Aff. Their solvency is all about how unionization is key, not a stronger right to strike. Whatever marginal increase in bargaining power they achieve is drowned out by the fact that there will be much lower union density in the first place. The problem with worker organization isn’t the right to strike- it’s companies taking deliberate anti-union action, which the aff doesn’t solve. Means the aff can never solve. Heidi Shierholz, 20 - ("Weakened labor movement leads to rising economic inequality," Economic Policy Institute, 1-27-2020, 11-4-2021https:www.epi.org/blog/weakened-labor-movement-leads-to-rising-economic-inequality/)AW The basic facts about inequality in the United States—that for most of the last 40 years, pay has stagnated for all but the highest paid workers and inequality has risen dramatically—are widely understood. What is less well-known is the role the decline of unionization has played in those trends. The share of workers covered by a collective bargaining agreement dropped from 27 percent to 11.6 percent between 1979 and 2019, meaning the union coverage rate is now less than half where it was 40 years ago. Research shows that this de-unionization accounts for a sizable share of the growth in inequality over that period—around 13–20 percent for women and 33–37 percent for men. Applying these shares to annual earnings data reveals that working people are now losing on the order of $200 billion per year as a result of the erosion of union coverage over the last four decades—with that money being redistributed upward, to the rich. The good news is that restoring union coverage—and strengthening workers’ abilities to join together to improve their wages and working conditions in other ways—is therefore likely to put at least $200 billion per year into the pockets of working people. These changes could happen through organizing and policy reform. Policymakers have introduced legislation, the Protecting the Right to Organize (PRO) Act, that would significantly reform current labor law. Building on the reforms in the PRO Act, the Clean Slate for Worker Power Project proposes further transformation of labor law, with innovative ideas to create balance in our economy. How is it that de-unionization has played such a large role in wage stagnation for working people and the rise of inequality? When workers are able to join together, form a union and collectively bargain, their pay goes up. On average, a worker covered by a union contract earns 13.2 percent more than a peer with similar education, occupation and experience in a non-unionized workplace in the same sector. Furthermore, the benefits of collective bargaining extend well beyond union workers. Where unions are strong, they essentially set broader standards that non-union employers must match in order to attract and retain the workers they need and to avoid facing an organizing drive. The combination of the direct effect of unions on their members and this “spillover” effect to non-union workers means unions are crucial in fostering a vibrant middle class—and has also meant that as unionization has eroded, pay for working people has stagnated and inequality has skyrocketed. Unions also help shrink racial wage gaps. For example, black workers are more likely than white workers to be represented by a union, and black workers who are in unions get a larger boost to wages from being in a union than white workers do. This means that the decline of unionization has played a significant role in the expansion of the black–white wage gap. But isn’t the erosion of unionization because workers don’t want unions anymore? No—survey data show that in fact, a higher share of non-union workers say they would vote for a union in their workplace today than did 40 years ago. Isn’t the erosion of unionization due to the shifts in employment from manufacturing to service-producing industries? No again—changing industry composition explains only a small share of the erosion of union coverage. What has caused declining unionization? One key factor is fierce corporate opposition that has smothered workers’ freedom to form unions. Aggressive anti-union campaigns—once confined to the most anti-union employers—have become widespread. For example, it is now standard, when workers seek to organize, for their employers to hire union avoidance consultants to coordinate fierce anti-union campaigns. We estimate that employers spend nearly $340 million per year hiring union avoidance advisers to help them prevent employees from organizing. And though the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA) makes it illegal for employers to intimidate, coerce or fire workers in retaliation for participating in union-organizing campaigns, the penalties are grossly insufficient to provide a meaningful disincentive for such behavior. This means employers often engage in illegal activities, such as threatening to close the worksite, cutting union activists’ hours or pay, or reporting workers to immigration enforcement authorities if employees unionize. In at least 1 in 5 union elections, employers are charged with illegally firing workers involved in organizing. In the face of these attacks on union organizing, policymakers have egregiously failed to update labor laws to balance the system. Fundamental reform is necessary to build worker power and guarantee all workers the right to come together and have a real voice in their workplace.
This evidence is key in their arguments about collective bargaining. That will never be able to happen if companies are taking anti-union action. Neg Framework The value criterion must be maximizing well-being for everyone. There are two main reasons for this: 1 Death is bad and outweighs – a agents can’t act if they fear for their bodily security which constrains every ethical theory, b it destroys the subject itself – kills any ability to achieve value in ethics since life is a prerequisite which means it’s a side constraint since we can’t reach the end goal of ethics without life 2 Existential threats outweigh – all life has infinite value and extinction eliminates the possibility for future generations – err negative, because of innate cognitive biases that prevent policymaking to solve extinction Econ DA
The economy is steadily recovering now, but is fragile. Rugaber 11/8 - Christopher Rugaber Economics Reporter, Associated Press, “'A struggle and a journey': Report shows US economy recovering,” Christian Science Monitor (Web). Nov. 8, 2021. Accessed Nov. 8, 2021. https://www.csmonitor.com/Business/2021/1108/A-struggle-and-a-journey-Report-shows-US-economy-recovering AT America’s employers accelerated their hiring last month, adding a solid 531,000 jobs, the most since July and a sign that the recovery from the pandemic recession is overcoming a virus-induced slowdown.¶ Friday’s report from the labor department also showed that the unemployment rate fell to 4.6 last month from 4.8 in September.¶ That is a comparatively low level though, still well above the pre-pandemic jobless rate of 3.5. And the job gains in August and September weren’t as weak as initially reported: The government increased its estimate of hiring for those two months by a hefty combined 235,000 jobs.¶ All told, the figures point to an economy that is steadily recovering from the pandemic recession, with healthy consumer spending prompting companies in nearly every industry to add workers. Though the effects of COVID-19 are still causing severe supply shortages, heightening inflation, and keeping many people out of the workforce, employers are finding gradually more success in filling near record-high job postings.¶ “This is the kind of recovery we can get when we are not sidelined by a surge in COVID cases,” said Nick Bunker, director of economic research at the employment website Indeed. “The speed of employment gains has faltered at times this year, but the underlying momentum of the U.S. labor market is quite clear.”¶ The better-than-expected jobs report was welcomed on Wall Street, where investors sent stocks further into record territory. The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose more than 200 points, or roughly 0.6, in Friday trading. Short-term Treasury yields rose as some investors moved up their expectations for when the Federal Reserve will begin raising interest rates. But longer-term yields dipped amid muted expectations for inflation over the long term.¶ By most barometers, the economic recovery appears solidly on track. Service companies in such areas as retail, banking, and warehousing have reported a sharp jump in sales. Sales of new and existing homes surged last month. And consumer confidence rose in October after three straight declines.¶ At the same time, though, the nation remains 4.2 million jobs short of the number it had before the pandemic flattened the economy in March 2020. The effects of the virus are still discouraging some people from traveling, shopping, eating out, and attending entertainment venues.¶ In October, the pickup in hiring was spread across nearly every major industry, with only government employers reporting a job loss, mostly in education. Shipping and warehousing companies added 54,000 jobs. The battered leisure and hospitality sector, which includes restaurants, bars, hotels, and entertainment venues, gained 164,000. Manufacturers, despite their struggles with supply shortages, added 60,000, the most since June 2020.¶ And employers, who have been competing to fill jobs from a diminished pool of applicants, raised wages at a solid clip: Average hourly pay jumped 4.9 in October compared with a year earlier, up from 4.6 the previous month. Even a gain that strong, though, is barely keeping pace with recent surges in consumer inflation.¶ Those price increases pose a headwind for the economy. Higher costs for food, heating oil, rents, and furniture have burdened millions of families. Prices rose 4.4 in September compared with 12 months earlier, the sharpest such jump in three decades.¶ Among people who are receiving pay raises, some of the biggest beneficiaries are the record-high number of people who have been quitting jobs to take new ones. One of them is Christian Frink, who has begun work as a business analyst at a digital consulting firm. In his new job, Mr. Frink of Ferndale, Michigan, helps business clients determine the technologies they need.¶ Earlier this year, Mr. Frink held a marketing job but left it because, like many people during COVID, he felt burnt out. He then worked for Door Dash during the spring and summer to earn money and searched for new work. Although employers were complaining about a labor shortage, several told him they wouldn’t hire anyone without a college degree. (Mr. Frink attended college but didn’t graduate.)¶ This past summer, Mr. Frink took coding classes at Tech Elevator, a boot camp, and then landed his new position. Now, he’s earning 35 more than in his previous job and says he’s “blown away” that he already has health care coverage and doesn’t have to wait months to become eligible.¶ Yet it isn’t only job-switchers who are receiving pay raises. Chad Leibundguth, a regional director in Tampa for the Robert Half staffing agency, said the job market is the strongest for workers he has seen in his 22-year career. Before the pandemic, he said, you could fill a customer service job in Florida for $14 an hour.¶ “Nowadays,” he said, “you’ve got to be closer to $20 an hour, because people have options.”¶ Job prospects are brightening even for people who have been out of work for prolonged periods. The number of long-term unemployed – people who have been jobless for six months or more – has fallen sharply in recent months, to 2.3 million in October from 4.2 million in April. That’s still double the pre-recession total. But it’s an encouraging sign because employers are typically wary of hiring people who haven’t held jobs for an extended time.¶ At the same time, disparities in the job market have persisted. The Black unemployment rate was unchanged in October at 7.9, for example, while for white workers, it fell to 4 from 4.2. The Latino jobless rate dropped to 5.9 from 6.3.¶ And though white-collar jobs in professional services like information technology, engineering, and architecture are nearly back to their pre-pandemic employment levels, leisure and hospitality still has 1.4 million fewer jobs.¶ Hari Ravichandran, CEO of digital security provider Aura in Boston, says his 800-person company has 140 positions open, mostly in software development.¶ Mr. Ravichandran is willing to hire remote workers; 170 of his staffers have never regularly worked in any of the company’s buildings. Still, hiring remains as tough as he’s ever experienced.¶ One disappointing note in Friday’s report is that the workforce – the number of people either working or looking for a job – was unchanged in October. That suggested that the reopening of schools in September, the waning of the virus, and the expiration of a $300-a-week federal unemployment supplement have yet to coax many people off the sidelines of the job market in large numbers.¶ Drawing many people back into the workforce after recessions is typically a prolonged process. There are now 7.4 million people officially out of work – just 1.7 million more than in February 2020, before the pandemic struck the economy. Yet millions more who lost jobs during the recession have given up their job hunts, and employers might have to raise pay and benefits to draw them back in, said Aaron Sojourner, a labor economist at the University of Minnesota.¶ Even so, some companies still can’t find enough workers. Many parents, particularly mothers, haven’t returned to the workforce after having left jobs during the pandemic to care for children or other relatives. Yet there was evidence of a small rebound last month: The proportion of women who were either working or looking for work rose after two months of declines. Strikes cause widespread economic harm - GM strikes prove. John McElroy, 2019, Strikes Hurt Everybody.Wards Auto Industry News, October 25, https://www.wardsauto.com/ideaxchange/strikes-hurt-everybody But strikes don’t just hurt the people walking the picket lines or the company they’re striking against. They hurt suppliers, car dealers and the communities located near the plants. The Anderson Economic Group estimates that 75,000 workers at supplier companies were temporarily laid off because of the GM strike. Unlike UAW picketers, those supplier workers won’t get any strike pay or an $11,000 contract signing bonus. No, most of them lost close to a month’s worth of wages, which must be financially devastating for them. Suppliers also lost a lot of money. So now they’re cutting budgets and delaying capital investments to make up for the lost revenue, which is a further drag on the economy. According to CAR, the communities and states where GM’s plants are located collectively lost a couple of hundred million dollars in payroll and tax revenue. Some economists warn that if the strike were prolonged it could knock the state of Michigan – home to GM and the UAW – into a recession. That prompted the governor of Michigan, Gretchen Whitmer, to call GM CEO Mary Barra and UAW leaders and urge them to settle as fast as possible. Strikes now trigger food shortages, undermine health care and threaten the economy. Shannon Pettypiece, 10-24, 21, Biden on the sidelines of 'Striketober,' with economy in the balance, NBC News, https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/white-house/biden-sidelines-striketober-economy-balance-n1282094 But President Biden faces a different dynamic from candidate Biden, because strikes risk adding to labor shortages and supply chain disruptions that are already driving up prices as the global economy reels from pandemic strains. While the strikes could benefit workers by driving up wages in the long term, the near-term impact of persistent or growing work stoppages could include worst-case scenarios like food shortages or lack of access to hospitals. "This will come at an economic cost to employers and therefore the economy, and I think that may be why Biden has gone a little silent," said Ariel Avgar, an associate professor of labor relations, law and history at Cornell University. "It is tricky for him. On the one hand, he is on the record supporting unions and their ability to use collective action. On the other hand, the point of strikes is to extract an economic price for employers unwilling to negotiate in a way the union feels is appropriate." Economic downturns devastate people’s lives. EPI ’09 – Economic Policy Institute, “Economic Scarring: The long-term impacts of the recession,” Economic Policy Institute (Web). Briefing Paper #243. Sept. 30, 2009. Accessed Nov. 8, 2021. https://www.epi.org/publication/bp243/ AT Economic recessions are often portrayed as short-term events. However, as a substantial body of economic literature shows, the consequences of high unemployment, falling incomes, and reduced economic activity can have lasting consequences. For example, job loss and falling incomes can force families to delay or forgo a college education for their children. Frozen credit markets and depressed consumer spending can stop the creation of otherwise vibrant small businesses. Larger companies may delay or reduce spending on RandD.¶ In each of these cases, an economic recession can lead to “scarring”—that is, long-lasting damage to individuals’ economic situations and the economy more broadly. This report examines some of the evidence demonstrating the long-run consequences of recessions. Findings include:¶ Educational achievement: Unemployment and income losses can reduce educational achievement by threatening early childhood nutrition; reducing families’ abilities to provide a supportive learning environment (including adequate health care, summer activities, and stable housing); and by forcing a delay or abandonment of college plans.¶ Opportunity: Recession-induced job and income losses can have lasting consequences on individuals and families. The increase in poverty that will occur as a result of the recession, for example, will have lasting consequences for kids, and will impose long-lasting costs on the economy.¶ Private investment: Total non-residential investment is down by 20 from peak levels through the second quarter of 2009. The reduction in investment will lead to reduced production capacity for years to come. Furthermore, since technology is often embedded in new capital equipment, the investment slowdown can also be expected to reduce the adoption of new innovations.¶ Entrepreneurial activity and business formation: New and small businesses are often at the forefront of technological advancement. With the credit crunch and the reduction in consumer demand, small businesses are seeing a double squeeze. For example, in 2008, 43,500 businesses filed for bankruptcy, up from 28,300 businesses in 2007 and more than double the 19,700 filings in 2006. Only 21 active firms had an initial public offering in 2008, down from an average of 163 in the four years prior.¶ There is also substantial evidence that economic outcomes are passed across generations. As such, economic hardships for parents will mean more economic hurdles for their children. While it is often said that deficits can cause transfers of wealth from future generations of taxpayers to the present, this cost must also be compared with the economic consequences of recessions that are also passed to future generations.¶ This analysis also suggests that efforts to stimulate the economy can be very effective over both the short- and long-run. Using a simple illustrative accounting framework, it is shown that an economic stimulus can lead to a short-run boost in output that outweighs the additional interest costs of the associated debt increase. This is especially true over a short horizon.¶ A recession, therefore, should not be thought of as a one-time event that stresses individuals and families for a couple of years. Rather, economic downturns will impact the future prospects of all family members, including children, and will have consequences for years to come.
Considering the worsening climate change, in the future outer space might be our last Noah’s Ark. Now, humans must look to space as an opportunity to support growing resource requirements. Asteroids are rich in metals, which could be transported back to Earth. Unfortunately, the existing international legal framework discourages investments in the space economy. Once an enterprise invests billions of dollars in discovering and developing a mining site, it cannot claim any ownership because of the non-appropriation principle stipulated in Article 2 of the Outer Space Treaty (OST). Thus, other entities could legally access and exploit the same resource without any participation in the initial financial investment, increasing the risk of potential conflict. Bearing this in mind, the question arises, which legal regime could ensure effective allocation of resources, avoiding a chaotic space race to acquire valuable assets? The aim of this research is to argue that the first two articles of OST should be amended, to set up an international legal trust system which would guarantee different kinds of rights, dependently on the nature of the celestial body. E.g., property rights could be preferable to a lease over asteroids, as they could be exploited to their disappearance. This proposed system would be led by the United Nations Office for Outer Space Affairs (UNOOSA), as the main trustee. The co-trustees would be the nations of the world. Prior to initiating any space activity, every entity would send a request to their national government. If all the legal parameters are respected, the nation would forward the operational request to the UNOOSA. In the case of acceptance, UNOOSA would record the permit on an international public registry. The country in which the company has been registered would investigate whether the activities of its national company are consistent with the permit. This would be the ordinary model. The extraordinary model would be when the applicant for the space activity is a state, then the trustee would be the UN. All lucrative activities would be subject to benefit-sharing. Finally, this research will demonstrate the valuable outcome of the International Legal Trust System and its advantages for all humankind. Private companies would rely on property rights, while the benefit-sharing could be used to finance the 17 Sustainable Development Goals adopted by the UN in 2015, which address peace, climate change, inequalities and poverty. NC Shell – Russia Fill-In DA Russian space program powerless without a Sino-Russian space alliance right now, but in order to circumvent the plan, China helps Russia fill in as the US’s space leader Luke Harding {Guardian foreign correspondent. His book Shadow State is published by Guardian Faber.}, 21 - ("The space race is back on – but who will win?," Guardian, 7-16-2021, https://www.theguardian.com/science/2021/jul/16/the-space-race-is-back-on-but-who-will-win)//marlborough-wr/ The biggest challenge to US space supremacy comes not from Russia – heir to the Soviet Union’s pioneering space programme, which launched the Sputnik satellite and got the first human into space in the form of Yuri Gagarin – but from China. In 2011 Congress prohibited US scientists from cooperating with Beijing. Its fear: scientific espionage. Taikonauts are banned from visiting the ISS, which has hosted astronauts from 19 countries over the past 20 years. The station’s future beyond 2028 is uncertain. Its operations may yet be extended in the face of increasing Chinese competition. In its annual threat assessment this April, the office of the US Director of National Intelligence (DNI) described China as a “near-peer competitor” pushing for global power. It warns: “Beijing is working to match or exceed US capabilities in space to gain the military, economic, and prestige benefits that Washington has accrued from space leadership.” The Biden administration suspects Chinese satellites are being used for non-civilian purposes. The People’s Liberation Army integrates reconnaissance and navigation data in military command and control systems, the DNI says. “Satellites are inherently dual use. It’s not like the difference between an F15 fighter jet and a 737 passenger plane,” Hilborne says. Once China completes the Tiangong space station next year, it is likely to invite foreign astronauts to take part in missions. One goal: to build new soft-power alliances. Beijing says interest from other countries is enormous. The low Earth orbit station is part of an ambitious development strategy in the heavens rather than on land – a sort of belt and rocket initiative. According to Alanna Krolikowski, an assistant professor at the Missouri University of Science and Technology, a “bifurcation” of space exploration is under way. In one emerging camp are states led by China and Russia, many of them authoritarian; in the other are democracies and “like-minded” countries aligned with the US. Russia has traditionally worked closely with the Americans, even when terrestrial relations were bad. Now it is moving closer to Beijing. In March, China and Russia announced plans to co-build an international lunar research station. The agreement comes at a time when Vladimir Putin’s government has been increasingly isolated and subject to western sanctions. In June, Putin and his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping renewed a friendship treaty. Moscow is cosying up to Beijing out of necessity, at a time of rising US-China bipolarity. These rival geopolitical factions are fighting over a familiar mountainous surface: the moon. In 2019 a Chinese rover landed on its far side – a first. China is now planning a mission to the moon’s south pole, to establish a robotic research station and an eventual lunar base, which would be intermittently crewed. Nasa, meanwhile, has said it intends to put a woman and a person of colour on the moon by 2024. SpaceX has been hired to develop a lander. The return to the moon – after the last astronaut, commander Eugene Cernan, said goodbye in December 1972 – would be a staging post for the ultimate “giant leap”, Nasa says: sending astronauts to Mars. Krolikowski is sceptical that China will quickly overtake the US to become the world’s leading spacefaring country. “A lot of what China is doing is a reprisal of what the cold war space programmes did in the 1960s and 1970s,” she said. Beijing’s recent feats of exploration have as much to do with national pride as scientific discovery, she says. But there is no doubting Beijing’s desire to catch up, she adds. “The Chinese government has established, or has plans for, programmes or missions in every major area, whether it’s Mars missions, building mega constellations of telecommunications satellites, or exploring asteroids. There is no single area of space activity they are not involved in.” “We see a tightening of the Russia-China relationship,” Krolikowski says. “In the 1950s the Soviet Union provided a wide range of technical assistance to Beijing. Since the 1990s, however, the Russian space establishment has experienced long stretches of underfunding and stagnation. China now presents it with new opportunities.” Russia is poised to benefit from cost sharing, while China gets deep-rooted Russian technical expertise. At least, that’s the theory. “I’m sceptical this joint space project will materialise anytime soon,” says Alexander Gabuev, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Moscow Centre. Gabuev says both countries are “techno-nationalist”. Previous agreements to develop helicopters and wide-bodied aircraft saw nothing actually made, he says.
Russia and China are in a space arms race- the plan causes China to bow out and Russia wins Bradley Bowman, Jared Thompson {Bradley Bowman, the senior director of the Center on Military and Political Power at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, and Jared Thompson, a U.S. Air Force major and visiting military analyst at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, }, 20 - ("Russia and China Seek to Tie America’s Hands in Space," Foreign Policy, 11-12-2020, https://foreignpolicy.com/2021/03/31/russia-china-space-war-treaty-demilitarization-satellites/)//marlborough-wr/ Consider the actions of the United States’ two great-power adversaries when it comes to anti-satellite weapons. China and Russia have sprinted to develop and deploy both ground-based and space-based weapons targeting satellites while simultaneously pushing the United States to sign a treaty banning such weapons. To protect its vital space-based military capabilities—including communications, intelligence, and missile defense satellites—and effectively deter authoritarian aggression, Washington should avoid being drawn into suspect international treaties on space that China and Russia have no intention of honoring. The Treaty on the Prevention of the Placement of Weapons in Outer Space and of the Threat or Use of Force Against Outer Space Objects (PPWT), which Beijing and Moscow have submitted at the United Nations, is a perfect example. PPWT signatories commit “not to place any weapons in outer space.” It also says parties to the treaty may not “resort to the threat or use of force against outer space objects” or engage in activities “inconsistent” with the purpose of the treaty. On the surface, that sounds innocuous. Who, after all, wants an arms race in space? The reality, however, is that China and Russia are already racing to field anti-satellite weapons and have been for quite some time. “The space domain is competitive, congested, and contested,” Gen. James Dickinson, the head of U.S. Space Command, said in January. “Our competitors, most notably China and Russia, have militarized this domain.” Beijing already has an operational ground-based anti-satellite missile capability. People’s Liberation Army units are training with the missiles, and the U.S. Defense Department believes Beijing “probably intends to pursue additional anti-satellite weapons capable of destroying satellites up to geosynchronous Earth orbit.” That is where America’s most sensitive nuclear communication and missile defense satellites orbit and keep watch. Similarly, Moscow tested a ground-based anti-satellite weapon in December that could destroy U.S. or allied satellites in orbit. That attack capability augments a ground-based laser weapon that Russian President Vladimir Putin heralded in 2018. In a moment of candor, Russia’s defense ministry admitted the system was designed to “fight satellites.” To make matters worse, both countries are also working to deploy space-based—or so-called “on-orbit”—capabilities to attack satellites. This link turns their first scenario, and unchecked Russian influence risks extinction Fisher ‘15 (Max, Foreign affairs columnist @ VOX, "How World War III became possible," 6/29, http://www.vox.com/2015/6/29/8845913/russia-war) That is why, analysts will tell you, today's tensions bear far more similarity to the period before World War I: an unstable power balance, belligerence over peripheral conflicts, entangling military commitments, disputes over the future of the European order, and dangerous uncertainty about what actions will and will not force the other party into conflict. Today's Russia, once more the strongest nation in Europe and yet weaker than its collective enemies, calls to mind the turn-of-the-century German Empire, which Henry Kissinger described as "too big for Europe, but too small for the world." Now, as then, a rising power, propelled by nationalism, is seeking to revise the European order. Now, as then, it believes that through superior cunning, and perhaps even by proving its might, it can force a larger role for itself. Now, as then, the drift toward war is gradual and easy to miss — which is exactly what makes it so dangerous. But there is one way in which today's dangers are less like those before World War I, and more similar to those of the Cold War: the apocalyptic logic of nuclear weapons. Mutual suspicion, fear of an existential threat, armies parked across borders from one another, and hair-trigger nuclear weapons all make any small skirmish a potential armageddon. In some ways, that logic has grown even more dangerous. Russia, hoping to compensate for its conventional military forces' relative weakness, has dramatically relaxed its rules for using nuclear weapons. Whereas Soviet leaders saw their nuclear weapons as pure deterrents, something that existed precisely so they would never be used, Putin's view appears to be radically different. Russia's official nuclear doctrine calls on the country to launch a battlefield nuclear strike in case of a conventional war that could pose an existential threat. These are more than just words: Moscow has repeatedly signaled its willingness and preparations to use nuclear weapons even in a more limited war. This is a terrifyingly low bar for nuclear weapons use, particularly given that any war would likely occur along Russia's borders and thus not far from Moscow. And it suggests Putin has adopted an idea that Cold War leaders considered unthinkable: that a "limited" nuclear war, of small warheads dropped on the battlefield, could be not only survivable but winnable. "It’s not just a difference in rhetoric. It’s a whole different world," Bruce G. Blair, a nuclear weapons scholar at Princeton, told the Wall Street Journal. He called Putin's decisions more dangerous than those of any Soviet leader since 1962. "There’s a low nuclear threshold now that didn’t exist during the Cold War." Nuclear theory is complex and disputable; maybe Putin is right. But many theorists would say he is wrong, that the logic of nuclear warfare means a "limited" nuclear strike is in fact likely to trigger a larger nuclear war — a doomsday scenario in which major American, Russian, and European cities would be targets for attacks many times more powerful than the bombs that leveled Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Even if a nuclear war did somehow remain limited and contained, recent studies suggest that environmental and atmospheric damage would cause a "decade of winter" and mass crop die-outs that could kill up to 1 billion people in a global famine. s
On Case Solvency
Solvency deficient— a. Public agency can do it or you can do it without giving agencies right to mine. Case is Contingent on Russia and china seeing space as competition. The CP solves because it provides international form for refuting disputes. b. Plan text bans just for china. Causality won’t impact story that the us actions pushes china and Russia together and how china is key. Banning china won’t defuse the tensions. Techman card wouldn’t be resolved because Russia and cabaility and terrestial conflict c. Reads no solvency evidence. No empirical ev or cards that pplans solve 2. Prefer the CP a. means there is not competition for who gets to astroid firsT agency can allocate space resources to countries first b. Solves mining adv in gauten ev—still able to mine for astorids, just more efficiently and farly 3. DA turns case: China Russia arms race causes unchecked Russian influence—risk extinction Circumvention Russia cheats – gives an asymmetric advantage – constitutional and political constraints prevent US reciprocation Lambakis 17 Dr. Steven Lambakis is a national security and international affairs analyst specializing in space power and policy studies. Dr. Lambakis serves as the Editor-in-Chief of Comparative Strategy, a leading international journal of global affairs and strategic studies whose readership includes key policymakers, academics, and other leaders. Dr. Lambakis was educated in the fields of international politics, with special emphasis on arms control and intelligence issues, American government, and U.S. foreign policy at Northern Illinois University in DeKalb, Illinois (B.A., 1982) and the Catholic University of America in Washington D.C. (M.A., 1984, and Ph.D., 1990). Foreign Space Capabilities: Implications for U.S. National Security. September 2017. www.nipp.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/Foreign-Space-Capabilities-pub-2017.pdf While Russia is making strong technical strides toward having weapons capable of damaging or destroying U.S. satellites, it is using its foreign policy to try to hobble potential U.S. space weapons. For example, Russia (along with China) has advocated for a treaty preventing the placement of weapons in outer space and the threat or use of force against space-based assets. Russia is fully aware that there are no known technologies or capabilities to verify compliance with such a treaty. The purpose in pursuing such arms control agreements is to hobble U.S. weapons and technology development, because of the domestic political opposition such rhetoric might generate and because the United States will comply with any arms control agreement that it signs. The Russians do not have the same constitutional and political constraints in place as the United States to restrain its development of ASATs. Moreover, the Russians are accustomed to violating arms control agreements that it they have signed. Writes defense analyst Mark Schneider: “There is no reason to expect Russia to break a habit of ignoring its arms control and treaty obligations. By doing this, it has gained military advantages for decades.”119 FW
Turn - private space exploration is key to solve all of the aff’s impacts. Rumende 21: Thevnin Rumende {mechanical engineering junior and Community Voices columnist, }, 21 - ("Opinion: Critics are overlooking the technological benefits of the billionaire space race," Shorthorn, 9-14-2021, https://www.theshorthorn.com/opinion/opinion-critics-are-overlooking-the-technological-benefits-of-the-billionaire-space-race/article_4cd73e2e-1512-11ec-874b-bb7e3009729b.html)//marlborough-wr/ There has been no shortage of opinion surrounding what has been derisively dubbed by some as the “pointless billionaire space race.” Pundits have not hesitated to express their ire toward what they view as a new pet project for billionaires. Despite the controversy that accompanies the uber-wealthy’s interest in the private space industry, this development and its effects deserve to be treated with more nuance. When discussing the topic of billionaires in space, the hatred and distrust toward these individuals often trumps any positive technological advancements their companies have achieved on the path to civilian space flight. Simply labeling their endeavors in commercial space flight “a rich person’s ‘joyride’” undercuts the sheer immensity of safely ferrying a person to and from the edge of space, and in the case of SpaceX, a private space manufacturer, having docked and undocked with the international space station in low-Earth orbit. While viewing the success of the current era of space transportation, one might overlook the fact that of the 355 astronauts who flew aboard NASA’s space shuttles from 1981 to 2011, 14 were killed. Simply put, many things can and have gone wrong when attempting to enter space, and any step taken closer to a safer launch system benefits all of humanity. However, for some people, they view the contest of private space companies as “a tragically wasteful ego contest,” a distraction from more pressing issues such as proliferating climate catastrophes, inequality, lack of health care and insufficient housing. This view is shortsighted as it fails to recognize the key role space is already playing in combating a host of the aforementioned crises. According to the World Economic Forum, space technology is helping end hunger by imaging vast swathes of agricultural land and by helping produce agricultural indexes, along with ensuring people access to clean water through the monitoring of reservoirs via satellite images. Cheaper and more efficient space launch systems mean deploying even more satellites to help better address these problems. The microgravity environment of space could potentially allow the fabrication of human organs using a 3D bioprinter. With the demand for yearly organ transplants dwarfing the supply, manufacturing organs in space would help address the overwhelming needs of medical patients. The most common contention leveled against these “space billionaires” is that the wealth they accumulate through their endeavors will only serve to enrich them, widening the gap between the haves and the have nots. While these concerns are natural, they often overlook technology’s profound ability to democratize knowledge and reshape society for the better. The private space industry has already significantly reduced the capital investment necessary to embark on projects such as internet satellite constellations. Satellite internet providers have long promised the ability to provide secure internet connectivity to the remaining 3.7 billion unconnected people on the earth, but only now is it attainable. With current technology, nearly a third of the human population could access secure financial accounts and the vast library of human knowledge, once restricted to more developed nations, in under a decade. The significance of these two effects alone toward the advancement of humanity, which could be further advanced through private interests in space, would be incalculable. Like the creation of the internet and the opening of the western frontier in the U.S., the impact that the opening of space will have on the course of humanity is unforeseeable. But the impact is sure to be monumental. We shouldn’t let our distaste of certain billionaires cloud our view of the path that lies ahead. Just as the robber barons of yesteryear played a large role in shaping the nation but are now long forgotten, so too will Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk and Sir Richard Branson.
Yes extinction first, Fisher 15 ev turns extinction scenario. More probable in aff world. 2. Neg prevents extinction via the CP—no competition so arms race doesn’t link. Doesn’t get impact 3. Rumende ev gives a laundry list of reasons why private tech exploration is net good-ends hungry, positive technological dcancements, better internet etx.
1/15/22
HH NC Rd 3
Tournament: Alta | Round: 3 | Opponent: Alta AB | Judge: Heaven Montague NC
WSDE CP Plan text: Firms should be transformed into worker self-directed enterprises. Wolff ND - Richard D. Wolff professor of economics emeritus at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst and a visiting professor at the New School in New York City. He has also taught economics at Yale University, the City University of New York, and the University of Paris I (Sorbonne), “Start with Worker Self-Directed Enterprises,” The Next System Project. https://thenextsystem.org/sites/default/files/2017-08/RickWolff.pdf AT We therefore propose reorganizing enterprises such that workers become their own bosses. Specifically, that means placing the workers in the position of their own collective board of directors, rather than having directors be nonworkers selected by major shareholders. This is not primarily a matter of workers as owners of these enterprises (fine, but not required), nor primarily as managers (likewise fine, but not required). It is the tasks of direction—the decision making now assigned usually and primarily to corporate boards of directors and only secondarily to the major shareholders who choose them—that must be transferred to the workers collectively. We call such enterprises worker self-directed enterprises (WSDEs). They embody and concretize what we mean by economic democracy by locating it first and foremost inside the enterprises producing the goods and services upon which society depends. WSDEs represent the goal and their growth and proliferation represent the mechanism to transition from the present capitalist system to a far better next system. The strategic focus, then, is not upon the government, as in traditional liberal and socialist thinking; it is rather more microeconomic than macroeconomic. Of course, winning government support of WSDEs and their proliferation would be helpful and sought after—perhaps by political parties rooted in and funded by an emerging WSDE sector within otherwise private or state capitalist economies. But the main emphasis would be on working people who either convert existing enterprises into WSDEs or start new enterprises as WSDEs. Core Goals Briefly, what are the principal, core goals your model or system seeks to realize? Our core goal is the development of a major—and, if possible, prevailing—sector of the economy that is comprised of enterprises (offices, factories, farms, and stores) in which the employees democratically perform the following key enterprise activities: (a) divide all the labors to be performed, (b) determine what is to be produced, how it is to be produced, and where it is to be produced, and (c) decide on the use and distribution of the output or revenues (if output is monetized) therefrom. Major Changes What are the principal changes you envision in the current system—the major differences between what you envision and what we have today? A large portion of existing capitalistically organized enterprises would have to transition out of structures in which owners, top managers, or boards of directors perform the key enterprise activities mentioned above. Principal Means What are the principal means (policies, institutions, behaviors, whatever) through which each of your core goals is pursued? The means to achieve the transition would need to be several. Laws would need to be enacted or changed to facilitate the conversion of capitalistically organized enterprises into WSDEs, the formation of new WSDEs, and the functioning of WSDEs. School curriculums would need to be changed and teachers be trained to explain, explore, and study WSDEs systematically as alternative-enterprise organizations alongside their traditional capitalist counterparts (corporations, partnerships, and family enterprises). Political parties and platforms need to emerge to represent the interests of WSDEs—the WSDE sector—in terms of state policies, much as now the Democrats and Republicans represent the interests of the capitalist sector. Empirics prove that self-directed firms are more democratic and successful. Jerry Ashton, 13 - ("The Worker Self-Directed Enterprise: A "Cure" for Capitalism, or a Slippery Slope to Socialism?," HuffPost, 1-2-2013, accessed 11-16-2021, https://www.huffpost.com/entry/worker-self-directed-enterprise_b_2385334)//MS Decidedly so, Wolff responds, providing two financially successful examples of the workplace being a social activity governed by the norms of community, one in Spain and one in California. ¶ Wolff offers as his first example, the Mondragon Cooperative in the North of Spain. ¶ This co-op took its name from the Mondragan University founded by a local Catholic priest by the name of "Father Arizmendi" as a mechanism to enable the poor in that community to learn how to cooperatively run their own business. ¶ Beginning with six workers producing agrarian goods, some 55 years later it now employs 120,000 people employed in some 100 worker-owned enterprises and affiliated organizations. It is the 10th largest cooperative in Spain and a bulwark against that country's steep (elsewhere) unemployment rate of 22 percent. ¶ "This is a 'a family of cooperatives' in which the first commitment is to preserve jobs -- not satisfy stockholders." Wolff points out. ¶ That same philosophy infuses the Arizmendi Bakery comprising five "sister cooperatives" in the San Francisco Bay Area. Proudly assuming the name of the famous Basque Priest, this group gets rave reviews for its pastries and thin-crust pizza and handily outperforms its more traditional bakery competitors in both revenue and employee satisfaction. ¶ As their website proudly states, "We are a cooperative -- a worker-owned and operated business. We make decisions democratically, sharing all of the tasks, responsibilities, benefits and risks." ¶ Econ DA
The economy is steadily recovering now, but is fragile. Rugaber 11/8 - Christopher Rugaber Economics Reporter, Associated Press, “'A struggle and a journey': Report shows US economy recovering,” Christian Science Monitor (Web). Nov. 8, 2021. Accessed Nov. 8, 2021. https://www.csmonitor.com/Business/2021/1108/A-struggle-and-a-journey-Report-shows-US-economy-recovering AT America’s employers accelerated their hiring last month, adding a solid 531,000 jobs, the most since July and a sign that the recovery from the pandemic recession is overcoming a virus-induced slowdown.¶ Friday’s report from the labor department also showed that the unemployment rate fell to 4.6 last month from 4.8 in September.¶ That is a comparatively low level though, still well above the pre-pandemic jobless rate of 3.5. And the job gains in August and September weren’t as weak as initially reported: The government increased its estimate of hiring for those two months by a hefty combined 235,000 jobs.¶ All told, the figures point to an economy that is steadily recovering from the pandemic recession, with healthy consumer spending prompting companies in nearly every industry to add workers. Though the effects of COVID-19 are still causing severe supply shortages, heightening inflation, and keeping many people out of the workforce, employers are finding gradually more success in filling near record-high job postings.¶ “This is the kind of recovery we can get when we are not sidelined by a surge in COVID cases,” said Nick Bunker, director of economic research at the employment website Indeed. “The speed of employment gains has faltered at times this year, but the underlying momentum of the U.S. labor market is quite clear.”¶ The better-than-expected jobs report was welcomed on Wall Street, where investors sent stocks further into record territory. The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose more than 200 points, or roughly 0.6, in Friday trading. Short-term Treasury yields rose as some investors moved up their expectations for when the Federal Reserve will begin raising interest rates. But longer-term yields dipped amid muted expectations for inflation over the long term.¶ By most barometers, the economic recovery appears solidly on track. Service companies in such areas as retail, banking, and warehousing have reported a sharp jump in sales. Sales of new and existing homes surged last month. And consumer confidence rose in October after three straight declines.¶ At the same time, though, the nation remains 4.2 million jobs short of the number it had before the pandemic flattened the economy in March 2020. The effects of the virus are still discouraging some people from traveling, shopping, eating out, and attending entertainment venues.¶ In October, the pickup in hiring was spread across nearly every major industry, with only government employers reporting a job loss, mostly in education. Shipping and warehousing companies added 54,000 jobs. The battered leisure and hospitality sector, which includes restaurants, bars, hotels, and entertainment venues, gained 164,000. Manufacturers, despite their struggles with supply shortages, added 60,000, the most since June 2020.¶ And employers, who have been competing to fill jobs from a diminished pool of applicants, raised wages at a solid clip: Average hourly pay jumped 4.9 in October compared with a year earlier, up from 4.6 the previous month. Even a gain that strong, though, is barely keeping pace with recent surges in consumer inflation.¶ Those price increases pose a headwind for the economy. Higher costs for food, heating oil, rents, and furniture have burdened millions of families. Prices rose 4.4 in September compared with 12 months earlier, the sharpest such jump in three decades.¶ Among people who are receiving pay raises, some of the biggest beneficiaries are the record-high number of people who have been quitting jobs to take new ones. One of them is Christian Frink, who has begun work as a business analyst at a digital consulting firm. In his new job, Mr. Frink of Ferndale, Michigan, helps business clients determine the technologies they need.¶ Earlier this year, Mr. Frink held a marketing job but left it because, like many people during COVID, he felt burnt out. He then worked for Door Dash during the spring and summer to earn money and searched for new work. Although employers were complaining about a labor shortage, several told him they wouldn’t hire anyone without a college degree. (Mr. Frink attended college but didn’t graduate.)¶ This past summer, Mr. Frink took coding classes at Tech Elevator, a boot camp, and then landed his new position. Now, he’s earning 35 more than in his previous job and says he’s “blown away” that he already has health care coverage and doesn’t have to wait months to become eligible.¶ Yet it isn’t only job-switchers who are receiving pay raises. Chad Leibundguth, a regional director in Tampa for the Robert Half staffing agency, said the job market is the strongest for workers he has seen in his 22-year career. Before the pandemic, he said, you could fill a customer service job in Florida for $14 an hour.¶ “Nowadays,” he said, “you’ve got to be closer to $20 an hour, because people have options.”¶ Job prospects are brightening even for people who have been out of work for prolonged periods. The number of long-term unemployed – people who have been jobless for six months or more – has fallen sharply in recent months, to 2.3 million in October from 4.2 million in April. That’s still double the pre-recession total. But it’s an encouraging sign because employers are typically wary of hiring people who haven’t held jobs for an extended time.¶ At the same time, disparities in the job market have persisted. The Black unemployment rate was unchanged in October at 7.9, for example, while for white workers, it fell to 4 from 4.2. The Latino jobless rate dropped to 5.9 from 6.3.¶ And though white-collar jobs in professional services like information technology, engineering, and architecture are nearly back to their pre-pandemic employment levels, leisure and hospitality still has 1.4 million fewer jobs.¶ Hari Ravichandran, CEO of digital security provider Aura in Boston, says his 800-person company has 140 positions open, mostly in software development.¶ Mr. Ravichandran is willing to hire remote workers; 170 of his staffers have never regularly worked in any of the company’s buildings. Still, hiring remains as tough as he’s ever experienced.¶ One disappointing note in Friday’s report is that the workforce – the number of people either working or looking for a job – was unchanged in October. That suggested that the reopening of schools in September, the waning of the virus, and the expiration of a $300-a-week federal unemployment supplement have yet to coax many people off the sidelines of the job market in large numbers.¶ Drawing many people back into the workforce after recessions is typically a prolonged process. There are now 7.4 million people officially out of work – just 1.7 million more than in February 2020, before the pandemic struck the economy. Yet millions more who lost jobs during the recession have given up their job hunts, and employers might have to raise pay and benefits to draw them back in, said Aaron Sojourner, a labor economist at the University of Minnesota.¶ Even so, some companies still can’t find enough workers. Many parents, particularly mothers, haven’t returned to the workforce after having left jobs during the pandemic to care for children or other relatives. Yet there was evidence of a small rebound last month: The proportion of women who were either working or looking for work rose after two months of declines. Strikes cause widespread economic harm - GM strikes prove. John McElroy, 2019, Strikes Hurt Everybody.Wards Auto Industry News, October 25, https://www.wardsauto.com/ideaxchange/strikes-hurt-everybody But strikes don’t just hurt the people walking the picket lines or the company they’re striking against. They hurt suppliers, car dealers and the communities located near the plants. The Anderson Economic Group estimates that 75,000 workers at supplier companies were temporarily laid off because of the GM strike. Unlike UAW picketers, those supplier workers won’t get any strike pay or an $11,000 contract signing bonus. No, most of them lost close to a month’s worth of wages, which must be financially devastating for them. Suppliers also lost a lot of money. So now they’re cutting budgets and delaying capital investments to make up for the lost revenue, which is a further drag on the economy. According to CAR, the communities and states where GM’s plants are located collectively lost a couple of hundred million dollars in payroll and tax revenue. Some economists warn that if the strike were prolonged it could knock the state of Michigan – home to GM and the UAW – into a recession. That prompted the governor of Michigan, Gretchen Whitmer, to call GM CEO Mary Barra and UAW leaders and urge them to settle as fast as possible. Strikes now trigger food shortages, undermine health care and threaten the economy. Shannon Pettypiece, 10-24, 21, Biden on the sidelines of 'Striketober,' with economy in the balance, NBC News, https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/white-house/biden-sidelines-striketober-economy-balance-n1282094 But President Biden faces a different dynamic from candidate Biden, because strikes risk adding to labor shortages and supply chain disruptions that are already driving up prices as the global economy reels from pandemic strains. While the strikes could benefit workers by driving up wages in the long term, the near-term impact of persistent or growing work stoppages could include worst-case scenarios like food shortages or lack of access to hospitals. "This will come at an economic cost to employers and therefore the economy, and I think that may be why Biden has gone a little silent," said Ariel Avgar, an associate professor of labor relations, law and history at Cornell University. "It is tricky for him. On the one hand, he is on the record supporting unions and their ability to use collective action. On the other hand, the point of strikes is to extract an economic price for employers unwilling to negotiate in a way the union feels is appropriate." Economic downturns devastate people’s lives. EPI ’09 – Economic Policy Institute, “Economic Scarring: The long-term impacts of the recession,” Economic Policy Institute (Web). Briefing Paper #243. Sept. 30, 2009. Accessed Nov. 8, 2021. https://www.epi.org/publication/bp243/ AT Economic recessions are often portrayed as short-term events. However, as a substantial body of economic literature shows, the consequences of high unemployment, falling incomes, and reduced economic activity can have lasting consequences. For example, job loss and falling incomes can force families to delay or forgo a college education for their children. Frozen credit markets and depressed consumer spending can stop the creation of otherwise vibrant small businesses. Larger companies may delay or reduce spending on RandD.¶ In each of these cases, an economic recession can lead to “scarring”—that is, long-lasting damage to individuals’ economic situations and the economy more broadly. This report examines some of the evidence demonstrating the long-run consequences of recessions. Findings include:¶ Educational achievement: Unemployment and income losses can reduce educational achievement by threatening early childhood nutrition; reducing families’ abilities to provide a supportive learning environment (including adequate health care, summer activities, and stable housing); and by forcing a delay or abandonment of college plans.¶ Opportunity: Recession-induced job and income losses can have lasting consequences on individuals and families. The increase in poverty that will occur as a result of the recession, for example, will have lasting consequences for kids, and will impose long-lasting costs on the economy.¶ Private investment: Total non-residential investment is down by 20 from peak levels through the second quarter of 2009. The reduction in investment will lead to reduced production capacity for years to come. Furthermore, since technology is often embedded in new capital equipment, the investment slowdown can also be expected to reduce the adoption of new innovations.¶ Entrepreneurial activity and business formation: New and small businesses are often at the forefront of technological advancement. With the credit crunch and the reduction in consumer demand, small businesses are seeing a double squeeze. For example, in 2008, 43,500 businesses filed for bankruptcy, up from 28,300 businesses in 2007 and more than double the 19,700 filings in 2006. Only 21 active firms had an initial public offering in 2008, down from an average of 163 in the four years prior.¶ There is also substantial evidence that economic outcomes are passed across generations. As such, economic hardships for parents will mean more economic hurdles for their children. While it is often said that deficits can cause transfers of wealth from future generations of taxpayers to the present, this cost must also be compared with the economic consequences of recessions that are also passed to future generations.¶ This analysis also suggests that efforts to stimulate the economy can be very effective over both the short- and long-run. Using a simple illustrative accounting framework, it is shown that an economic stimulus can lead to a short-run boost in output that outweighs the additional interest costs of the associated debt increase. This is especially true over a short horizon.¶ A recession, therefore, should not be thought of as a one-time event that stresses individuals and families for a couple of years. Rather, economic downturns will impact the future prospects of all family members, including children, and will have consequences for years to come. Economic decline causes nuclear war – collapses faith in deterrence Tønnesson, 15—Research Professor, Peace Research Institute Oslo; Leader of East Asia Peace program, Uppsala University (Stein, “Deterrence, interdependence and Sino–US peace,” International Area Studies Review, Vol. 18, No. 3, p. 297-311, dml) 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. The best way to enhance global peace is no doubt to multiply the factors protecting it: build a Pacific security community by topping up economic interdependence with political rapprochement and trust, institutionalized cooperation, and shared international norms. Yet even without such accomplishments, the combination of deterrence and economic interdependence may be enough to prevent war among the major powers. Because the leaders of nuclear armed nations are fearful of getting into a situation where peace relies uniquely on nuclear deterrence, and because they know that their adversaries have the same fear, they may accept the risks entailed by depending economically on others. And then there will be neither trade wars nor shooting wars, just disputes and diplomacy.
On Case C1: No Solvency (General) Conditional RTS is enough. Countries generally restrict the right to strike, even where Unions are effective and powerful. Wass ’13 - Dr. Bernd Waas, Goethe University Frankfurt, Germany, 2012, Strike as a Fundamental Right of the Workers and its Risks of Conflicting with other Fundamental Rights of the Citizens, https://www.islssl.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/Strike-Waas.pdf Limitations of the Right to Strike A positive right to strike does not mean that it is guaranteed without restriction. The freedoms and rights of other persons must be respected. Apart from that, inherent limitations may exist as well. This is the case in Germany, for instance. The right to strike is acknowledged because such a right is required for collective bargaining to take place. Bargaining without the right to strike would be no more than “collective begging”, to put it in the words of the Federal Labour Court. That the right to strike is based on the right to bargain collectively has an important consequence, namely, that the right to strike is guaranteed only insofar as the strike is related to that very purpose. The need to ensure collective bargaining both justifies and limits the right to strike. In other words: A strike is lawful in Germany if and only if its underlying objective is the reaching of a collective bargaining agreement. This implies that the regulation demanded must be viable and fall within the competence of the “social partners” (as it affects “working and economic 12 conditions”). Similarly, in the Czech Republic, a strike may only be called in a dispute over entering into a collective agreement. In Chile, too, the right to strike is strictly related to collective bargaining. This right can only be exercised if negotiations between the parties fail. Outside the framework of collective bargaining, striking is regarded a violation of labour law, and possibly even a crime. In practice, however, a considerable number of strikes take place outside these boundaries. Though the constitutional background differs entirely from Germany, the law in the United States also requires a strike to be related to collective bargaining. Workers may only strike over so-called “mandatory subjects of bargaining” which are “wages, hours, and other terms and conditions of employment.” Though it is true that parties may lawfully bargain over other issues – so-called “permissive” bargaining subjects – neither is legally obliged to do so. In addition, neither party may insist upon – or strike over – such permissive topics. A labour union may certainly not demand bargaining over – or strike over – an unlawful topic. No relation to collective bargaining exists, on the other hand, in Slovenia. It suffices if the strike serves the workers’ economic or social interests. Consequently, the right to strike is neither limited to the conclusion of a collective agreement, nor is it required for the strike to be aimed at inducing the employer to concur to a collective agreement. The problem with worker organization isn’t the right to strike- it’s companies taking deliberate anti-union action, which the aff doesn’t solve. Means the aff can never solve. Heidi Shierholz, 20 - ("Weakened labor movement leads to rising economic inequality," Economic Policy Institute, 1-27-2020, 11-4-2021https:www.epi.org/blog/weakened-labor-movement-leads-to-rising-economic-inequality/)AW The basic facts about inequality in the United States—that for most of the last 40 years, pay has stagnated for all but the highest paid workers and inequality has risen dramatically—are widely understood. What is less well-known is the role the decline of unionization has played in those trends. The share of workers covered by a collective bargaining agreement dropped from 27 percent to 11.6 percent between 1979 and 2019, meaning the union coverage rate is now less than half where it was 40 years ago. Research shows that this de-unionization accounts for a sizable share of the growth in inequality over that period—around 13–20 percent for women and 33–37 percent for men. Applying these shares to annual earnings data reveals that working people are now losing on the order of $200 billion per year as a result of the erosion of union coverage over the last four decades—with that money being redistributed upward, to the rich. The good news is that restoring union coverage—and strengthening workers’ abilities to join together to improve their wages and working conditions in other ways—is therefore likely to put at least $200 billion per year into the pockets of working people. These changes could happen through organizing and policy reform. Policymakers have introduced legislation, the Protecting the Right to Organize (PRO) Act, that would significantly reform current labor law. Building on the reforms in the PRO Act, the Clean Slate for Worker Power Project proposes further transformation of labor law, with innovative ideas to create balance in our economy. How is it that de-unionization has played such a large role in wage stagnation for working people and the rise of inequality? When workers are able to join together, form a union and collectively bargain, their pay goes up. On average, a worker covered by a union contract earns 13.2 percent more than a peer with similar education, occupation and experience in a non-unionized workplace in the same sector. Furthermore, the benefits of collective bargaining extend well beyond union workers. Where unions are strong, they essentially set broader standards that non-union employers must match in order to attract and retain the workers they need and to avoid facing an organizing drive. The combination of the direct effect of unions on their members and this “spillover” effect to non-union workers means unions are crucial in fostering a vibrant middle class—and has also meant that as unionization has eroded, pay for working people has stagnated and inequality has skyrocketed. Unions also help shrink racial wage gaps. For example, black workers are more likely than white workers to be represented by a union, and black workers who are in unions get a larger boost to wages from being in a union than white workers do. This means that the decline of unionization has played a significant role in the expansion of the black–white wage gap. But isn’t the erosion of unionization because workers don’t want unions anymore? No—survey data show that in fact, a higher share of non-union workers say they would vote for a union in their workplace today than did 40 years ago. Isn’t the erosion of unionization due to the shifts in employment from manufacturing to service-producing industries? No again—changing industry composition explains only a small share of the erosion of union coverage. What has caused declining unionization? One key factor is fierce corporate opposition that has smothered workers’ freedom to form unions. Aggressive anti-union campaigns—once confined to the most anti-union employers—have become widespread. For example, it is now standard, when workers seek to organize, for their employers to hire union avoidance consultants to coordinate fierce anti-union campaigns. We estimate that employers spend nearly $340 million per year hiring union avoidance advisers to help them prevent employees from organizing. And though the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA) makes it illegal for employers to intimidate, coerce or fire workers in retaliation for participating in union-organizing campaigns, the penalties are grossly insufficient to provide a meaningful disincentive for such behavior. This means employers often engage in illegal activities, such as threatening to close the worksite, cutting union activists’ hours or pay, or reporting workers to immigration enforcement authorities if employees unionize. In at least 1 in 5 union elections, employers are charged with illegally firing workers involved in organizing. In the face of these attacks on union organizing, policymakers have egregiously failed to update labor laws to balance the system. Fundamental reform is necessary to build worker power and guarantee all workers the right to come together and have a real voice in their workplace.
Turn: Increasing the cost of labor will just accelerate automation, outsourcing, and offshoring. Alt causes and backlash from firms deck aff solvency. Groshen and Holzer ’19 - Erica Groshen Senior Economics Advisor at the Cornell University School of Industrial and Labor Relations and Research Fellow at the Upjohn Institute for Employment Research and Harry J. Holzer Prof. of Public Policy, Georgetown U., “Helping workers requires more than silver bullets,” Brookings Institution (Web). Nov. 25, 2019. Accessed Nov. 19, 2021. https://www.brookings.edu/opinions/helping-workers-requires-more-than-silver-bullets/ AT But no single silver bullet solution exists that can solve our skills and earnings problems. Why? Because no single or dominant cause explains stagnating earnings or rising inequality in the US. Thus, simplistic “silver bullet” policies would likely be ineffective or even do more harm than good.¶ Some “silver bullets” are too scattershot. For instance, free college for all would shunt billions of dollars of tax revenue into subsidizing higher education for the wealthy at a time when federal budgets are already deeply in the red. A Universal Basic Income would be even more expensive, and could induce workers to stop seeking many new jobs that will be created over time.¶ Other proposals could harm those they aim to help or be ineffective. Imposing a uniform $15 federal minimum wage, even by 2025 (as many now propose), could induce employers to eliminate jobs for low-wage workers in already distressed communities. Proposals to expand unionism alone might generate only small increases, in light of employers’ ability of to resist collective bargaining by automating, relocating their facilities, or outsourcing work to other firms.¶ To sensibly raise wages and reduce inequality among American workers, we must recognize that a confluence of causes are at work, which requires a combination of evidence-based policy responses. The causes include labor market forces like technical change, globalization, and too few well-educated workers; they also include changes in labor institutions beyond weakened unions and a lack of worker “voice.” Indeed, a growing set of employer practices, such as outsourcing some activities to other firms (which is often called employment “fissuring”) likely contribute to weak outcomes as well. Such practices break the time-honored links between a firm’s profitability and its workers’ earnings, and diminish employer interest in training workers to make them more productive.¶ Without important, systematic policy changes, the earnings and employment of US workers – especially those without college degrees – will likely continue to deteriorate. More trade and automation in the form of robotics and artificial intelligence (AI) will almost certainly lead millions of workers to be displaced, while our failure to adequately fund public institutions of higher education and workforce services will limit workers’ readiness for new jobs that will be created. In other areas – including federal wage and hour laws, worker rights to representation on the job, and employer staffing arrangements – we are surely still moving in the wrong direction. The turns outweigh the Aff. Their solvency is all about how unionization is key, not a stronger right to strike. Whatever marginal increase in bargaining power they achieve is drowned out by the fact that there will be much lower union density in the first place. C2: Income
Extend the McELroy ev, which is the link that strikes cause ecnomic harm. This is eespeically important because economic harm worsens poerty, accesses to housing etc. The impact of the econ Da turns their entire contention, C3: Unconditional
CP solves entirely, self directed enterprises allow get the NBfor citizens to stand up for themselves Fw: - We agree, CP solves better
12/3/21
HH NC Rd 5
Tournament: Harvard Westlake | Round: 5 | Opponent: Harker KB | Judge: Joshua Micheal Note This source might be better for the Russia Fill-In DA: https://www.cnbc.com/2017/03/29/space-arms-race-as-russia-china-emerge-as-rapidly-growing-threats-to-us.html NC 1 Interpretation: private entities is a generic bare plural. The aff may not defend that the appropriation of outer space by a subset of private entities is unjust. Nebel 19 Jake Nebel Jake Nebel is an assistant professor of philosophy at the University of Southern California and executive director of Victory Briefs. , 8-12-2019, "Genericity on the Standardized Tests Resolution," Briefly, https://www.vbriefly.com/2019/08/12/genericity-on-the-standardized-tests-resolution/ SM Both distinctions are important. Generic resolutions can’t be affirmed by specifying particular instances. But, since generics tolerate exceptions, plan-inclusive counterplans (PICs) do not negate generic resolutions. Bare plurals are typically used to express generic generalizations. But there are two important things to keep in mind. First, generic generalizations are also often expressed via other means (e.g., definite singulars, indefinite singulars, and bare singulars). Second, and more importantly for present purposes, bare plurals can also be used to express existential generalizations. For example, “Birds are singing outside my window” is true just in case there are some birds singing outside my window; it doesn’t require birds in general to be singing outside my window. So, what about “colleges and universities,” “standardized tests,” and “undergraduate admissions decisions”? Are they generic or existential bare plurals? On other topics I have taken great pains to point out that their bare plurals are generic—because, well, they are. On this topic, though, I think the answer is a bit more nuanced. Let’s see why. 1.1 “Colleges and Universities” “Colleges and universities” is a generic bare plural. I don’t think this claim should require any argument, when you think about it, but here are a few reasons. First, ask yourself, honestly, whether the following speech sounds good to you: “Eight colleges and universities—namely, those in the Ivy League—ought not consider standardized tests in undergraduate admissions decisions. Maybe other colleges and universities ought to consider them, but not the Ivies. Therefore, in the United States, colleges and universities ought not consider standardized tests in undergraduate admissions decisions.” That is obviously not a valid argument: the conclusion does not follow. Anyone who sincerely believes that it is valid argument is, to be charitable, deeply confused. But the inference above would be good if “colleges and universities” in the resolution were existential. By way of contrast: “Eight birds are singing outside my window. Maybe lots of birds aren’t singing outside my window, but eight birds are. Therefore, birds are singing outside my window.” Since the bare plural “birds” in the conclusion gets an existential reading, the conclusion follows from the premise that eight birds are singing outside my window: “eight” entails “some.” If the resolution were existential with respect to “colleges and universities,” then the Ivy League argument above would be a valid inference. Since it’s not a valid inference, “colleges and universities” must be a generic bare plural. Second, “colleges and universities” fails the upward-entailment test for existential uses of bare plurals. Consider the sentence, “Lima beans are on my plate.” This sentence expresses an existential statement that is true just in case there are some lima beans on my plate. One test of this is that it entails the more general sentence, “Beans are on my plate.” Now consider the sentence, “Colleges and universities ought not consider the SAT.” (To isolate “colleges and universities,” I’ve eliminated the other bare plurals in the resolution; it cannot plausibly be generic in the isolated case but existential in the resolution.) This sentence does not entail the more general statement that educational institutions ought not consider the SAT. This shows that “colleges and universities” is generic, because it fails the upward-entailment test for existential bare plurals. Third, “colleges and universities” fails the adverb of quantification test for existential bare plurals. Consider the sentence, “Dogs are barking outside my window.” This sentence expresses an existential statement that is true just in case there are some dogs barking outside my window. One test of this appeals to the drastic change of meaning caused by inserting any adverb of quantification (e.g., always, sometimes, generally, often, seldom, never, ever). You cannot add any such adverb into the sentence without drastically changing its meaning. To apply this test to the resolution, let’s again isolate the bare plural subject: “Colleges and universities ought not consider the SAT.” Adding generally (“Colleges and universities generally ought not consider the SAT”) or ever (“Colleges and universities ought not ever consider the SAT”) result in comparatively minor changes of meaning. (Note that this test doesn’t require there to be no change of meaning and doesn’t have to work for every adverb of quantification.) This strongly suggests what we already know: that “colleges and universities” is generic rather than existential in the resolution. Fourth, it is extremely unlikely that the topic committee would have written the resolution with the existential interpretation of “colleges and universities” in mind. If they intended the existential interpretation, they would have added explicit existential quantifiers like “some.” No such addition would be necessary or expected for the generic interpretation since generics lack explicit quantifiers by default. The topic committee’s likely intentions are not decisive, but they strongly suggest that the generic interpretation is correct, since it’s prima facie unlikely that a committee charged with writing a sentence to be debated would be so badly mistaken about what their sentence means (which they would be if they intended the existential interpretation). The committee, moreover, does not write resolutions for the 0.1 percent of debaters who debate on the national circuit; they write resolutions, at least in large part, to be debated by the vast majority of students on the vast majority of circuits, who would take the resolution to be (pretty obviously, I’d imagine) generic with respect to “colleges and universities,” given its face-value meaning and standard expectations about what LD resolutions tend to mean.
It applies to private entities:
Upward entailment test – spec fails the upward entailment test because saying that one company’s appropriation is bad does not entail that all companies’ appropriation is bad 2. Adverb test – adding “usually” to the res doesn’t substantially change its meaning
Vote neg: 1 Precision –any deviation justifies the aff arbitrarily jettisoning words in the resolution at their whim which decks negative ground and preparation because the aff is no longer bounded by the resolution. 2 Limits—specifying a type of appropriation offers huge explosion in the topic since they get permutations of hundreds of governments, specific companies, and different sectors in the world. Drop the debater to preserve fairness and education – use competing interps –reasonability invites arbitrary judge intervention and a race to the bottom of questionable argumentation Hypothetical neg abuse doesn’t justify aff abuse, and theory checks cheaty CPs No RVIs—it’s their burden to be topical.
2 Text: People’s Republic of China (PRC) should commit to continuing research and development of the appropriation of outer space by private entities in the PRC. The PRC should give all information and developed products regarding the appropriation of outer space to the United States.
The CP solves the AFF – It stops China from deploying space weaponization which solves the whole advantage, BUT it solves the AFF better, even if they win a circumvention argument, because it means the US will always have their tech + its own.
It avoids the NB – the US getting their own tech + no defunct tech
No perms – we mandate the appropriation of space – the plan bans the CP, so perms are mutually exclusive or sever
2 Despite resistance, the CCP regime is stable now – but challenges to legitimacy cause lashout Ball, MA in IR, 20 (Joshua, University of St. Andrews, https://globalsecurityreview.com/degree-chinas-internal-stability-depend-economic-growth/, April 10) BW For decades, Western academics, policymakers, and analysts assumed that China’s embrace of capitalist economic policies would set the stage for democratic reform. Almost three decades later, however, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) remains firmly in power under the increasingly autocratic leadership of General Secretary Xi Jinping. While the CCP-controlled government faces a range of threats from groups within its borders, the idea of a downturn in the Chinese economy remains a very legitimate threat. The Chinese government has radically modernized its economic policies over the past three decades, completely reversing their initial Marxist or Maoist aversion to providing monetary compensation for labor. These reforms are responsible for the significant growth of the Chinese middle class, which has the potential to be the most influential group in China when looked at in regards to socio-economic status. As a result, the considerably large middle class has come to perceive the CCP as being responsible for their rising levels of prosperity. China has undoubtedly experienced the effects of the 2008-2009 global economic crisis; it indeed fared much better than the majority of the world. However, China still faces many hurdles to overcome. Rising Debt and Escalating Unemployment for Chinese College Graduates It is becoming increasingly difficult in China for college graduates to find jobs, the volume of China’s exports is dropping, and tens of millions of workers are out of work. The possibility of a financial crisis in China could challenge Beijing’s ability to hold up its side of the deal with the population. Since the inception of Jiang Zemin’s ‘Three Represents,’ meant to attract private entrepreneurs to party membership, the middle and upper classes have seen the party as being responsible for their economic well-being. The government provides an environment for a healthy, regulated economy, to encourage the creation of private wealth and property, and in return has its rule legitimized by its people. Arguably, while it is individuals are responsible for the creation of personal wealth, the party made it possible. If the government or party cannot guarantee jobs to the people, there remains the little reason for the people to tolerate the strict control that the party maintains over the state. If the CCP-controlled government cannot sustain economic growth, it could be perceived by members of the growing middle class as violating the social contract that has existed between China’s citizens and the country’s ruling party elite. The CCP could face a challenge to its legitimacy if and when the time comes that it is unable to guarantee a healthy economy, prompting potential discontent from the middle class. Beijing has a track record of effectively suppressing unrest The Chinese government has become particularly adept at maintaining or regaining control over its people via means of physical repression, censorship, and through the creation of an environment where fear of speaking out is a legitimate means of control. Indeed, the likelihood of an economic downturn eliminating the CCP’s influence is minimal. Rising social discontent isn’t likely to be enough to force the party itself from power, but it might be sufficient to tempt some members of the elite to take advantage of the situation to their political benefit, thus leading to internal instability within the party and damaging its credibility. While the CCP has an extraordinary ability to suppress dissent, many argue that it can only contain such dissent for so long. However, due to the rapid proliferation of advanced technologies including surveillance, censorship, and controlled access to information, the Chinese authorities are empowered as never before, to monitor, identify, and censor those whose activities are a perceived threat to the party. Nevertheless, a sustained economic downturn poses a threat to the CCP’s legitimacy. Continued civil unrest on the part of groups desiring independence from CCP rule as a result of religious suppression and ethnic inequality illustrate not-insignificant threats to the party’s ability to maintain total control over the Chinese state. Regardless, the most significant threat to the power monopoly held by the CCP is a pronounced economic downturn. The plan erodes CCP legitimacy. Xi and CCP leadership have made the privatization of space their top priority for military and economic superiority. Marlborough reads yellow: Patel 21 (Neel, space reporter for MIT Technology Review, and I also write The Airlock newsletter, your number one source for everything happening off this planet. Before joining, he worked as a freelance science and technology journalist, contributing stories to Popular Science, The Daily Beast, Slate, Wired, the Verge, and elsewhere. Prior to that, he was an associate editor for Inverse, where I grew and led the website’s space coverage.) “China’s surging private space industry is out to challenge the US” MIT Technology Review, 1/21/2021. https://www.technologyreview.com/2021/01/21/1016513/china-private-commercial-space-industry-dominance/ BC How did China get here—and why? Until recently, China’s space activity has been overwhelmingly dominated by two state-owned enterprises: the China Aerospace Science and Industry Corporation Limited (CASIC) and the China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation (CASC). A few private space firms have been allowed to operate in the country for a while: for example, there’s the China Great Wall Industry Corporation Limited (in reality a subsidiary of CASC), which has provided commercial launches since it was established in 1980. But for the most part, China’s commercial space industry has been nonexistent. Satellites were expensive to build and launch, and they were too heavy and large for anything but the biggest rockets to actually deliver to orbit. The costs involved were too much for anything but national budgets to handle. That all changed this past decade as the costs of making satellites and launching rockets plunged. In 2014, a year after Xi Jinping took over as the new leader of China, the Chinese government decided to treat civil space development as a key area of innovation, as it had already begun doing with AI and solar power. It issued a policy directive called Document 60 that year to enable large private investment in companies interested in participating in the space industry. “Xi’s goal was that if China has to become a critical player in technology, including in civil space and aerospace, it was critical to develop a space ecosystem that includes the private sector,” says Namrata Goswami, a geopolitics expert based in Montgomery, Alabama, who’s been studying China’s space program for many years. “He was taking a cue from the American private sector to encourage innovation from a talent pool that extended beyond state-funded organizations.” As a result, there are now 78 commercial space companies operating in China, according to a 2019 report by the Institute for Defense Analyses. More than half have been founded since 2014, and the vast majority focus on satellite manufacturing and launch services. For example, Galactic Energy, founded in February 2018, is building its Ceres rocket to offer rapid launch service for single payloads, while its Pallas rocket is being built to deploy entire constellations. Rival company i-Space, formed in 2016, became the first commercial Chinese company to make it to space with its Hyperbola-1 in July 2019. It wants to pursue reusable first-stage boosters that can land vertically, like those from SpaceX. So does LinkSpace (founded in 2014), although it also hopes to use rockets to deliver packages from one terrestrial location to another. Spacety, founded in 2016, wants to turn around customer orders to build and launch its small satellites in just six months. In December it launched a miniaturized version of a satellite that uses 2D radar images to build 3D reconstructions of terrestrial landscapes. Weeks later, it released the first images taken by the satellite, Hisea-1, featuring three-meter resolution. Spacety wants to launch a constellation of these satellites to offer high-quality imaging at low cost. To a large extent, China is following the same blueprint drawn up by the US: using government contracts and subsidies to give these companies a foot up. US firms like SpaceX benefited greatly from NASA contracts that paid out millions to build and test rockets and space vehicles for delivering cargo to the International Space Station. With that experience under its belt, SpaceX was able to attract more customers with greater confidence. Venture capital is another tried-and-true route. The IDA report estimates that VC funding for Chinese space companies was up to $516 million in 2018—far shy of the $2.2 billion American companies raised, but nothing to scoff at for an industry that really only began seven years ago. At least 42 companies had no known government funding. And much of the government support these companies do receive doesn’t have a federal origin, but a provincial one. “These companies are drawing high-tech development to these local communities,” says Hines. “And in return, they’re given more autonomy by the local government.” While most have headquarters in Beijing, many keep facilities in Shenzhen, Chongqing, and other areas that might draw talent from local universities. There’s also one advantage specific to China: manufacturing. “What is the best country to trust for manufacturing needs?” asks James Zheng, the CEO of Spacety’s Luxembourg headquarters. “It’s China. It’s the manufacturing center of the world.” Zheng believes the country is in a better position than any other to take advantage of the space industry’s new need for mass production of satellites and rockets alike. Diversionary conflict – it escalates. Hassid, PhD, 19 (Jonathan, PoliSci@Berkeley, AssistProfPoliSci@IowaState, A Poor China Might Be More Dangerous Than a Rich China, in Foreign Policy Issues for America, ed. Richard Mansbach DPhil and James McCormick PhD, Routledge) China has a number of political differences and potential conflicts with the United States, some of which are summarized in Chapter 4. From China’s vast maritime territorial claims, the anomalous status of Taiwan to America’s alliances with Japan and South Korea, its treatment of Tibetans and Islamic minorities like the Uighurs, and its reluctance to implement UN-sponsored sanctions to force North Korea to abandon nuclear weapons, there are many potential flash points in the Sino-U.S. relationship. Many analysts noted that at the 19th Party Congress Xi Jinping promoted a more aggressive and muscular foreign policy, promising that China would become a world superpower by 2050. This fact alone could presage eventual conflict with the current reigning superpower, the United States. Indeed, many in China and across Asia feel that President Trump’s pullout from the U.S.-led Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) have already signaled US retreat from the region, opening the way for a more assertive Chinese foreign policy. Some analysts go further, arguing that China is even now trying to build its own world order and muscle out U.S. trade influence by signing new bilateral trade agreements with historical U.S. allies like Canada. These signs may point to potential conflict in the future. However there is also reason to be hopeful; relations between the two giants were normalized in the 1970s, and thus far China and the United States have avoided serious conflict. In part this has been a result of U.S. policies in the region and because China has been able to increase its global status peacefully. But perhaps the most important reason conflict has been avoided is because Beijing has looked inwardly, concentrating on generating economic growth within its borders rather than making trouble beyond them. President Donald Trump has repeatedly argued that the United States must be more assertive in foreign affairs and in realizing its national interest regardless of the impact on others. His rhetoric has been highly combative. From vowing to declare China a “currency manipulator” on his first day in office – a claim he has since abandoned – to arguing that China has been cheating America in trade deals and denouncing the U.S. trade deficit with China, Trump has appeared to prefer confronting Beijing rather in engaging and cooperating with China. But this appearance of confrontation may belie a different reality. Many have noted that Trump and his family have personal business ties with China, including large investments and numerous pending trademark applications. Actions like Trump’s 2018 public support for state-owned Chinese tech company ZTE – coming just two days after the Chinese government announced a US $500m investment in a Trump-branded property in Indonesiaiii – further suggest to some that Beijing might be directly manipulating the US president to benefit Chinese foreign policy. Combined with the perception, common in Chinese official circles, that the United States under Trump is actually retreating from its commitments in Asia, the result might be additional areas of potential conflict with China and misperception and misunderstanding between the two. What might happen if there were an unintended Sino-American military confrontation in the South China Sea or the Sea of Japan, just as the Chinese economy slumps and triggers spreading labor unrest and disturbances at home? What might happen if Xi Jinping’s goal of having “no poverty in China by 2020” proves impossible, and China’s middle class becomes alienated from the regime and political dissent spreads owing to acute economic and/or environmental distress? Under such circumstances, China’s history suggests that Xi and other leaders might decide a “minor” foreign conflict would be a way to divert the attention of Chinese citizens from their domestic concerns. In China’s past, as we have seen, such “domestically-influenced” conflicts have been contained, but the very success of these previously limited conflicts might make Chinese leaders overconfident about their ability to avoid military escalation. Mistakes are easy to make, especially if the potential foe has a leader who tweets militant threats. If Beijing sought to distract an unhappy population by stirring up Chinese nationalism toward the United States, Taiwan, or Japan regarding maritime territorial claims, for example, and believes the Trump administration will not intervene, the two might careen toward a war that neither wants. An incident caused by a trigger-happy U.S. pilot or Chinese naval officer might escalate into a war that neither Washington nor Beijing sought. In the end, then, it may arguably better for the Trump administration that China continues to flourish economically. A prosperous China means that the United States has a valuable trading partner and – in certain issues – even a strategic partner. An impoverished China, however, might be bad news for everyone.
3 Russian space program powerless without a Sino-Russian space alliance right now, but in order to circumvent the plan, China helps Russia fill in as the US’s space leader Luke Harding {Guardian foreign correspondent. His book Shadow State is published by Guardian Faber.}, 21 - ("The space race is back on – but who will win?," Guardian, 7-16-2021, https://www.theguardian.com/science/2021/jul/16/the-space-race-is-back-on-but-who-will-win)//marlborough-wr/ The biggest challenge to US space supremacy comes not from Russia – heir to the Soviet Union’s pioneering space programme, which launched the Sputnik satellite and got the first human into space in the form of Yuri Gagarin – but from China. In 2011 Congress prohibited US scientists from cooperating with Beijing. Its fear: scientific espionage. Taikonauts are banned from visiting the ISS, which has hosted astronauts from 19 countries over the past 20 years. The station’s future beyond 2028 is uncertain. Its operations may yet be extended in the face of increasing Chinese competition. In its annual threat assessment this April, the office of the US Director of National Intelligence (DNI) described China as a “near-peer competitor” pushing for global power. It warns: “Beijing is working to match or exceed US capabilities in space to gain the military, economic, and prestige benefits that Washington has accrued from space leadership.” The Biden administration suspects Chinese satellites are being used for non-civilian purposes. The People’s Liberation Army integrates reconnaissance and navigation data in military command and control systems, the DNI says. “Satellites are inherently dual use. It’s not like the difference between an F15 fighter jet and a 737 passenger plane,” Hilborne says. Once China completes the Tiangong space station next year, it is likely to invite foreign astronauts to take part in missions. One goal: to build new soft-power alliances. Beijing says interest from other countries is enormous. The low Earth orbit station is part of an ambitious development strategy in the heavens rather than on land – a sort of belt and rocket initiative. According to Alanna Krolikowski, an assistant professor at the Missouri University of Science and Technology, a “bifurcation” of space exploration is under way. In one emerging camp are states led by China and Russia, many of them authoritarian; in the other are democracies and “like-minded” countries aligned with the US. Russia has traditionally worked closely with the Americans, even when terrestrial relations were bad. Now it is moving closer to Beijing. In March, China and Russia announced plans to co-build an international lunar research station. The agreement comes at a time when Vladimir Putin’s government has been increasingly isolated and subject to western sanctions. In June, Putin and his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping renewed a friendship treaty. Moscow is cosying up to Beijing out of necessity, at a time of rising US-China bipolarity. These rival geopolitical factions are fighting over a familiar mountainous surface: the moon. In 2019 a Chinese rover landed on its far side – a first. China is now planning a mission to the moon’s south pole, to establish a robotic research station and an eventual lunar base, which would be intermittently crewed. Nasa, meanwhile, has said it intends to put a woman and a person of colour on the moon by 2024. SpaceX has been hired to develop a lander. The return to the moon – after the last astronaut, commander Eugene Cernan, said goodbye in December 1972 – would be a staging post for the ultimate “giant leap”, Nasa says: sending astronauts to Mars. Krolikowski is sceptical that China will quickly overtake the US to become the world’s leading spacefaring country. “A lot of what China is doing is a reprisal of what the cold war space programmes did in the 1960s and 1970s,” she said. Beijing’s recent feats of exploration have as much to do with national pride as scientific discovery, she says. But there is no doubting Beijing’s desire to catch up, she adds. “The Chinese government has established, or has plans for, programmes or missions in every major area, whether it’s Mars missions, building mega constellations of telecommunications satellites, or exploring asteroids. There is no single area of space activity they are not involved in.” “We see a tightening of the Russia-China relationship,” Krolikowski says. “In the 1950s the Soviet Union provided a wide range of technical assistance to Beijing. Since the 1990s, however, the Russian space establishment has experienced long stretches of underfunding and stagnation. China now presents it with new opportunities.” Russia is poised to benefit from cost sharing, while China gets deep-rooted Russian technical expertise. At least, that’s the theory. “I’m sceptical this joint space project will materialise anytime soon,” says Alexander Gabuev, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Moscow Centre. Gabuev says both countries are “techno-nationalist”. Previous agreements to develop helicopters and wide-bodied aircraft saw nothing actually made, he says.
Russia and China are in a space arms race- the plan causes China to bow out and Russia wins Bradley Bowman, Jared Thompson {Bradley Bowman, the senior director of the Center on Military and Political Power at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, and Jared Thompson, a U.S. Air Force major and visiting military analyst at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, }, 20 - ("Russia and China Seek to Tie America’s Hands in Space," Foreign Policy, 11-12-2020, https://foreignpolicy.com/2021/03/31/russia-china-space-war-treaty-demilitarization-satellites/)//marlborough-wr/ Consider the actions of the United States’ two great-power adversaries when it comes to anti-satellite weapons. China and Russia have sprinted to develop and deploy both ground-based and space-based weapons targeting satellites while simultaneously pushing the United States to sign a treaty banning such weapons. To protect its vital space-based military capabilities—including communications, intelligence, and missile defense satellites—and effectively deter authoritarian aggression, Washington should avoid being drawn into suspect international treaties on space that China and Russia have no intention of honoring. The Treaty on the Prevention of the Placement of Weapons in Outer Space and of the Threat or Use of Force Against Outer Space Objects (PPWT), which Beijing and Moscow have submitted at the United Nations, is a perfect example. PPWT signatories commit “not to place any weapons in outer space.” It also says parties to the treaty may not “resort to the threat or use of force against outer space objects” or engage in activities “inconsistent” with the purpose of the treaty. On the surface, that sounds innocuous. Who, after all, wants an arms race in space? The reality, however, is that China and Russia are already racing to field anti-satellite weapons and have been for quite some time. “The space domain is competitive, congested, and contested,” Gen. James Dickinson, the head of U.S. Space Command, said in January. “Our competitors, most notably China and Russia, have militarized this domain.” Beijing already has an operational ground-based anti-satellite missile capability. People’s Liberation Army units are training with the missiles, and the U.S. Defense Department believes Beijing “probably intends to pursue additional anti-satellite weapons capable of destroying satellites up to geosynchronous Earth orbit.” That is where America’s most sensitive nuclear communication and missile defense satellites orbit and keep watch. Similarly, Moscow tested a ground-based anti-satellite weapon in December that could destroy U.S. or allied satellites in orbit. That attack capability augments a ground-based laser weapon that Russian President Vladimir Putin heralded in 2018. In a moment of candor, Russia’s defense ministry admitted the system was designed to “fight satellites.” To make matters worse, both countries are also working to deploy space-based—or so-called “on-orbit”—capabilities to attack satellites. This link turns their first scenario, and unchecked Russian influence risks extinction Fisher ‘15 (Max, Foreign affairs columnist @ VOX, "How World War III became possible," 6/29, http://www.vox.com/2015/6/29/8845913/russia-war) That is why, analysts will tell you, today's tensions bear far more similarity to the period before World War I: an unstable power balance, belligerence over peripheral conflicts, entangling military commitments, disputes over the future of the European order, and dangerous uncertainty about what actions will and will not force the other party into conflict. Today's Russia, once more the strongest nation in Europe and yet weaker than its collective enemies, calls to mind the turn-of-the-century German Empire, which Henry Kissinger described as "too big for Europe, but too small for the world." Now, as then, a rising power, propelled by nationalism, is seeking to revise the European order. Now, as then, it believes that through superior cunning, and perhaps even by proving its might, it can force a larger role for itself. Now, as then, the drift toward war is gradual and easy to miss — which is exactly what makes it so dangerous. But there is one way in which today's dangers are less like those before World War I, and more similar to those of the Cold War: the apocalyptic logic of nuclear weapons. Mutual suspicion, fear of an existential threat, armies parked across borders from one another, and hair-trigger nuclear weapons all make any small skirmish a potential armageddon. In some ways, that logic has grown even more dangerous. Russia, hoping to compensate for its conventional military forces' relative weakness, has dramatically relaxed its rules for using nuclear weapons. Whereas Soviet leaders saw their nuclear weapons as pure deterrents, something that existed precisely so they would never be used, Putin's view appears to be radically different. Russia's official nuclear doctrine calls on the country to launch a battlefield nuclear strike in case of a conventional war that could pose an existential threat. These are more than just words: Moscow has repeatedly signaled its willingness and preparations to use nuclear weapons even in a more limited war. This is a terrifyingly low bar for nuclear weapons use, particularly given that any war would likely occur along Russia's borders and thus not far from Moscow. And it suggests Putin has adopted an idea that Cold War leaders considered unthinkable: that a "limited" nuclear war, of small warheads dropped on the battlefield, could be not only survivable but winnable. "It’s not just a difference in rhetoric. It’s a whole different world," Bruce G. Blair, a nuclear weapons scholar at Princeton, told the Wall Street Journal. He called Putin's decisions more dangerous than those of any Soviet leader since 1962. "There’s a low nuclear threshold now that didn’t exist during the Cold War." Nuclear theory is complex and disputable; maybe Putin is right. But many theorists would say he is wrong, that the logic of nuclear warfare means a "limited" nuclear strike is in fact likely to trigger a larger nuclear war — a doomsday scenario in which major American, Russian, and European cities would be targets for attacks many times more powerful than the bombs that leveled Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Even if a nuclear war did somehow remain limited and contained, recent studies suggest that environmental and atmospheric damage would cause a "decade of winter" and mass crop die-outs that could kill up to 1 billion people in a global famine. Case Defense Probability – 0.1 chance of a collision. Alexander William Salter, Economics Professor at Texas Tech, ’16, “SPACE DEBRIS: A LAW AND ECONOMICS ANALYSIS OF THE ORBITAL COMMONS” 19 STAN. TECH. L. REV. 221 *numbers replaced with English words The probability of a collision is currently low. Bradley and Wein estimate that the maximum probability in LEO of a collision over the lifetime of a spacecraft remains below one in one thousand, conditional on continued compliance with NASA’s deorbiting guidelines.3 However, the possibility of a future “snowballing” effect, whereby debris collides with other objects, further congesting orbit space, remains a significant concern.4 Levin and Carroll estimate the average immediate destruction of wealth created by a collision to be approximately $30 million, with an additional $200 million in damages to all currently existing space assets from the debris created by the initial collision.5 The expected value of destroyed wealth because of collisions, currently small because of the low probability of a collision, can quickly become significant if future collisions result in runaway debris growth. Time frame – Kessler effect 200 years away. Peter Stubbe, PhD in law @ Johann Wolfgang Goethe University Frankfurt, ’17, State Accountability for Space Debris: A Legal Study of Responsibility for Polluting the Space Environment and Liability for Damage Caused by Space Debris, Koninklijke Brill Publishing, ISBN 978-90-04-31407-8, p. 27-31 The prediction of possible scenarios of the future evolution of the debris p o p ulation involves many uncertainties. Long-term forecasting means the prediction of the evolution of the future debris environment in time periods of decades or even centuries. Predictions are based on models84 that work with certain assumptions, and altering these parameters significantly influences the outcomes of the predictions. Assumptions on the future space traffic and on the initial object environment are particularly critical to the results of modeling efforts.85 A well-known pattern for the evolution of the debris population is the so-called Kessler effect’, which assumes that there is a certain collision probability among space objects because many satellites operate in similar orbital regions. These collisions create fragments, and thus additional objects in the respective orbits, which in turn enhances the risk of further collisions. Consequently, the number of objects and collisions increases exponentially and eventually results in the formation of a self-sustaining debris belt around the Earth. While it has long been assumed that such a process of collisional cascading is likely to occur only in a very long-term perspective (meaning a time 1 n of several hundred years),87 a consensus has evolved in recent years that an uncontrolled growth of the debris population in certain altitudes could become reality much sooner.88 In fact, a recent cooperative study undertaken by various space agencies in the scope of i a d c shows that the current l e o debris population is unstable, even if current mitigation measures are applied. The study concludes: Even with a 90 implementation of the commonly-adopted mitigation measures ... the l e o debris population is expected to increase by an average of 30 in the next 200 years. The population growth is primarily driven by catastrophic collisions between 700 and 1000 km altitudes and such collisions are likely to occur every 5 to 9 years.89
China cheats by creating domestic laws that contradict agreements McDevitt 19 Michael McDevitt is a Senior Fellow at CNA, a Washington DC area non-profit research and analysis company. During his 21 years at CNA he served as a Vice President responsible for strategic analyses, especially in East Asia and the Middle East. He has been involved in US security policy and strategy in the Asia-Pacific for the last 28 years, in both government policy positions and, following his retirement from the US Navy, as an analyst and commentator. He also attended the National War College and spent a year as a Chief of Naval Operations Fellow on the Strategic Study Group at the Naval War College. April 2019. https://www.uscc.gov/sites/default/files/transcripts/April20252C20201920Hearing20Transcript2028229.pdf But there one huge caveat to that statement, which is international law is fine as long as it moves their ball forward on what they hope to achieve. If it doesn't, suddenly, domestic law takes priority, and domestic law coming out of the National People's Congress can be cooked up pretty quickly. And so, they decide which law, which approach they want to use in the South China Sea or East China Sea, whichever one moves the ball most effectively. And so, one would have to worry about — now this may be a bridge too far but — a Chinese domestic space law. In fact, one may exist. I have no idea if it does or doesn't. But it would counteract any agreements that are either in place or that could be made. 2. Turn - private space exploration is key to solve all of the aff’s impacts. Rumende 21: Thevnin Rumende {mechanical engineering junior and Community Voices columnist, }, 21 - ("Opinion: Critics are overlooking the technological benefits of the billionaire space race," Shorthorn, 9-14-2021, https://www.theshorthorn.com/opinion/opinion-critics-are-overlooking-the-technological-benefits-of-the-billionaire-space-race/article_4cd73e2e-1512-11ec-874b-bb7e3009729b.html)//marlborough-wr/ There has been no shortage of opinion surrounding what has been derisively dubbed by some as the “pointless billionaire space race.” Pundits have not hesitated to express their ire toward what they view as a new pet project for billionaires. Despite the controversy that accompanies the uber-wealthy’s interest in the private space industry, this development and its effects deserve to be treated with more nuance. When discussing the topic of billionaires in space, the hatred and distrust toward these individuals often trumps any positive technological advancements their companies have achieved on the path to civilian space flight. Simply labeling their endeavors in commercial space flight “a rich person’s ‘joyride’” undercuts the sheer immensity of safely ferrying a person to and from the edge of space, and in the case of SpaceX, a private space manufacturer, having docked and undocked with the international space station in low-Earth orbit. While viewing the success of the current era of space transportation, one might overlook the fact that of the 355 astronauts who flew aboard NASA’s space shuttles from 1981 to 2011, 14 were killed. Simply put, many things can and have gone wrong when attempting to enter space, and any step taken closer to a safer launch system benefits all of humanity. However, for some people, they view the contest of private space companies as “a tragically wasteful ego contest,” a distraction from more pressing issues such as proliferating climate catastrophes, inequality, lack of health care and insufficient housing. This view is shortsighted as it fails to recognize the key role space is already playing in combating a host of the aforementioned crises. According to the World Economic Forum, space technology is helping end hunger by imaging vast swathes of agricultural land and by helping produce agricultural indexes, along with ensuring people access to clean water through the monitoring of reservoirs via satellite images. Cheaper and more efficient space launch systems mean deploying even more satellites to help better address these problems. The microgravity environment of space could potentially allow the fabrication of human organs using a 3D bioprinter. With the demand for yearly organ transplants dwarfing the supply, manufacturing organs in space would help address the overwhelming needs of medical patients. The most common contention leveled against these “space billionaires” is that the wealth they accumulate through their endeavors will only serve to enrich them, widening the gap between the haves and the have nots. While these concerns are natural, they often overlook technology’s profound ability to democratize knowledge and reshape society for the better. The private space industry has already significantly reduced the capital investment necessary to embark on projects such as internet satellite constellations. Satellite internet providers have long promised the ability to provide secure internet connectivity to the remaining 3.7 billion unconnected people on the earth, but only now is it attainable. With current technology, nearly a third of the human population could access secure financial accounts and the vast library of human knowledge, once restricted to more developed nations, in under a decade. The significance of these two effects alone toward the advancement of humanity, which could be further advanced through private interests in space, would be incalculable. Like the creation of the internet and the opening of the western frontier in the U.S., the impact that the opening of space will have on the course of humanity is unforeseeable. But the impact is sure to be monumental. We shouldn’t let our distaste of certain billionaires cloud our view of the path that lies ahead. Just as the robber barons of yesteryear played a large role in shaping the nation but are now long forgotten, so too will Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk and Sir Richard Branson. No impact and remediation’s not key—Nearly ZERO risk to any given satellite even ASSUMING cascades, Aff can’t solve it, and every other risk to spacecraft outweighs—Their ev makes several flawed assumptions Wein 9 Lawrence M. Wein, Professor and Senior Fellow at Stanford’s Center for International Security and Cooperation Jeffrey S. Skoll Professor of Management Science at Stanford University and Senior Fellow at Stanford’s Center for International Security and Cooperation, former DEC Leaders for Manufacturing Professor of Management Science at MIT, and Andrew M. Bradley, PhD-Institute for Computational and Mathematical Engineering at Stanford University, Space debris: Assessing risk and responsibility, Advances in Space Research 43 (2009) 1372–1390 More importantly, while our numerical results mimic earlier results (Liou and Johnson, 2005; Walker and Martin, 2004) that stressed the importance of postmission deorbiting, we do not necessarily agree with the claim that the only way to prevent future problems is to remove existing large intacts from space (Liou and Johnson, 2006, 2008). The divergence between our views and those in Liou and Johnson (2006, 2008) is perhaps due to the different performance metrics used. The root causes for alarm in Liou and Johnson (2006, 2008) appear to be the growth rate of fragments and the small increase in the rate of catastrophic collisions over the next 200 years (Liou and Johnson, 2008, Fig. 2). However, the great majority of catastrophic collisions in the SOI do not involve operational spacecraft, and are hazardous only in the sense that the fragments generated from such a collision could subsequently damage or destroy operational spacecraft. Therefore, we introduced the notion of the lifetime risk of an operational spacecraft as the primary performance metric. Our model predicts that the lifetime risk is 5x10^-4 less than .0005 over the next two centuries, and always stays 10^-3 less than .001 than if there is very high (98) spacecraft deorbiting compliance. These risks appear to be low relative to the immense cost and considerable technological uncertainty involved in removing large objects from space, are dwarfed by the 20 historical mission-impacting (but not necessarily mission-ending) failure rate of spacecraft (Frost and Sullivan, 2004), and could be overestimated if improved traffic management techniques lower future collision risks (Johnson, 2004). Hence, the need to bring large objects down from space does not appear to be as clear cut as suggested in Liou and Johnson (2006, 2008). Nonetheless, our model does not incorporate the possibility of intentional catastrophic collisions (ASAT tests, space wars) that could conceivably occur in the future. In addition, Fig. 5 considers only catastrophic collisions, whereas noncatastrophic intact-fragment collisions could easily disable an operational spacecraft. If the operational lifetime risk is modified to include noncatastrophic collisions with fragments = 10cm, then the sustainable risk rises by 50: it increases from 2.19x10^-2 .0219 to 3.09x10^-2 in the base case, and increases from 4.91x10^-4 .000491 to 7.94x10^-4 in the full compliance case. Moreover, if fragments = 1 cm (rather than = 10 cm) are harmful to spacecraft (Johnson, 2004), then we (as well as other researchers) could be underestimating the risk. In summary, in the absence of the removal of large objects from space, the sustainable lifetime risks in Figs. 3–5 do not appear to be obviously above or below a tolerable level. Even if these risks are deemed acceptable, it is prudent to invest in research and development for space remediation technologies, which is a topic of current study (Proposal for forming an IAA study group, 2000). However, given the optimality of full deorbit compliance from a societal, sustainable perspective, and the sensitivity of sustainable lifetime risk to postmission deorbit compliance, the primary focus for policymakers should be on increasing compliance, which leads us to a discussion of economic instruments that could be used to address this issue.
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Hudlin Postwork K
Tournament: Hollywood Invitational | Round: 2 | Opponent: Harvard Westlake AW | Judge: David Dosch Neg NC –Postwork K The aff’s refusal to work is not a refusal of work – their endorsement of striking reinforces the belief that withholding labor puts people in a position of power. This reduces humans to labor capital, which causes work-dependency and inhibits alternatives. Hoffmann, 20 (Maja, "Resolving the ‘jobs-environment-dilemma’? The case for critiques of work in sustainability research. Taylor and Francis, 4-1-2020, https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/23251042.2020.1790718)//usc-br/ The societal dependence on work If work is associated with environmental pressures in at least four different ways, why do we have to maintain it at constant or increased levels? We hold that in industrial society four distinct levels of structural and cultural dependency on work may be discerned. These are to be understood as broad analytical categories which in reality comprise and cross individual and structural levels in various ways, and are all interdependent. Personal dependence. A first aspect is individual or personal dependence on work: Work as regular, gainful employment constitutes one of the central social relations in modern ‘work society’ and is a central point of reference in people’s lives. As a principal source of income, waged work fulfils the existential function of providing livelihoods and social security. It is constructed to secure basic social rights, social integration, recognition, status, and personal identity (Frayne 2015b; Weeks 2011). This is probably why ‘social’ is so often equated with ‘work’. State dependence. Secondly, dependence on work pertains to the modern welfare state: the revenues and economic growth generated through work contribute substantially to the financing of social security systems. Affording welfare is therefore a main argument for creating jobs. Wage labour is thus a dominating tool for redistribution; through wages, taxes on wages and on the consumption that production generates, almost all distribution takes place. Hence, what the job is, and what is being produced, is of secondary importance (Paulsen 2017). Work is moreover a convenient instrument of control that structures and disciplines society, and ‘renders populations at once productive and governable’ (Weeks 2011, 54; Gorz 1982; Lafargue 2014 1883). Specifically, the dominant neoliberal ideology, its condemnation of laziness and idealisation of ‘hardworking people’ has intensified the ‘moral fortification of work’. Accordingly, the neoliberal ‘workfare’ reforms have focused on job creation and the relentless activation for the labour market, effectively ‘enforcing work (…) as a key function of the state’ (Frayne 2015b, 16). Economic dependence. Thirdly, besides the economic imperative for individuals to ‘earn a living’ and pay off debt, modern economies are dependent on work in terms of an industrious labour force, long working hours for increasing economic output under the imperatives of capital accumulation, growth and competition, and rising incomes for increasing purchasing power and demand. Creating or preserving jobs constitutes the standard argument for economic growth. In turn, work as one basic factor of production creates growth. However, the relation between growth and employment is conditioned, amongst other factors, primarily by constantly pursued labour productivity: for employment to rise or stay stable, the economy must grow at a sufficiently high rate to exceed productivity gains, in order to offset job losses and avoid ‘jobless growth’. Moreover, faltering expansion triggers a spiral of recession which not only affects economic stability but results in societal crises as a whole (Jackson 2009; Paech 2012). However, besides being unsustainable and insatiable, growth is also increasingly unlikely to continue at the rates required for economic stability (Kallis et al. 2018; IMF 2015). The individual and structural economic dependence on work and economic growth therefore implies profound vulnerability as livelihoods and political stability are fatefully exposed to global competition and the capitalist imperative of capital accumulation, and constrained by ‘systemically relevant’ job and growth creating companies, industries and global (financial) markets (Gronemeyer 2012; Paech 2012). Cultural dependence. A fourth aspect concerns cultural dependence: The ‘work ethic’ is the specific morality described by Max Weber (19921905) as constitutive of modern industrial culture, 2 and determining for all its subjects as shared ‘common senses’ about how work is valued and understood. It means an ingrained moral compulsion to gainful work and timesaving, manifested in the common ideals of productivity, achievement and entrepreneurship, in the feeling of guilt when time is ‘wasted’, in personal identification with one’s ‘calling’, in observations of busyness, even burnout as a ‘badge of honour’ (Paulsen 2014), and in descriptions of a culture that has lost the ‘capacity to relax in the old, uninhibited ways’ (Thompson 1967, 91). Even for those who do not share such attitudes towards work, in a work-centred culture it is normal to (seek) work. It is so commonsensical that it seems impractical to question it, and it continues to be normalised through socialisation and schooling. Consequently, people become limited in their imagination of alternatives, the prospect of losing one’s job usually causes heartfelt fear (Standing 2011). For a work society that ‘does no longer know of those other higher and more meaningful activities for the sake of which this freedom would deserve to be won’, there can be nothing worse than the cessation of work (Hannah Arendt, cited in Gorz 1989, 7–8). The wage relation based on the commodity labour is, in other words, an essential functional feature of the industrial-capitalist system, and the exaltation of work remains its social ethic. For modern industrial society work is ‘both its chief means and its ultimate goal’ (Gorz 1989, 13; Weber 1992 1905; Weeks 2011); it is centred and structurally dependent on work, despite work’s environmentally adverse implications. This constellation constitutes the dilemma between work and the environment, and it is why we argue that work is absolutely central to present-day unsustainability and should accordingly be dealt with in sustainability research. Work necessitates material throughput and waste that destroys the environment, even when the jobs are ‘green’ Hoffmann, 20 (Maja, "Resolving the ‘jobs-environment-dilemma’? The case for critiques of work in sustainability research. Taylor and Francis, 4-1-2020, https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/23251042.2020.1790718)//usc-br/ An ecological critique of work What is the problem with modern-day work from an environmental perspective? A number of quantitative studies have researched the correlation of working hours and environmental impacts in terms of ecological footprint, carbon footprint, greenhouse gas emissions, and energy consumption, both on micro/household and on macro/cross-national levels, and for both ‘developed’ and ‘developing’ countries (Fitzgerald, Jorgenson, and Clark 2015; Hayden and Shandra 2009; Knight, Rosa, and Schor 2013; Nässén and Larsson 2015; Rosnick and Weisbrot 2007). Based on these findings, and going beyond them, we develop a qualitative classification of ecological impacts of work broadly (not working hours only), distinguishing four analytically distinct factors (Hoffmann 2017). Fundamentally, all productive activity is based on material and energy throughputs within wider ecological conditions, which necessarily involves interference with the ecosphere. The appropriation and exploitation of non-human animals, land, soil, water, biomass, raw materials, the atmosphere and all other elements of the biosphere always to some extent causes pollution, degradation, and destruction. Thus, work is inherently both productive and destructive. However, this biophysical basis alone need not make work unsustainable, and it has not always been so (Krausmann 2017). Contributing to its unsustainability is, firstly, the Scale factor: the greater the amount of work, the more ‘inputs’ are required and the more ‘outputs’ generated, which means more throughput of resources and energy, and resulting ecological impacts. In other words, the more work, the larger the size of the economy, the more demands on the biosphere (Hayden and Shandra 2009; Knight, Rosa, and Schor 2013). Obviously, there are qualitative differences between different types of work and their respective environmental impacts. Moreover, besides the evident and direct impacts, indirect impacts matter also. The tertiary/service sector is therefore not exempt from this reasoning (Hayden and Shandra 2009; Knight, Rosa, and Schor 2013), not only due to its own (often ‘embodied’) materiality and energy requirements, but also because it administrates and supports industrial production processes in global supply chains (Fitzgerald, Jorgenson, and Clark 2015; Haberl et al. 2009; Paech 2012). Additionally, modern work is subject to certain integrally connected and mutually reinforcing conditions inherent in industrial economic structures, which aggravate ecological impacts by further increasing the Scale factor. These include the systematic externalisation of costs, and the use of fossil fuels as crucial energy basis, which combined with modern industrial technology enable continuously rising labour productivity independently of physical, spatial or temporal constraints (Malm 2013). Taken together, this leads to constantly spurred economic growth with a corresponding growth in material and energetic throughputs, and the creation of massive amounts of waste. The latter is not an adverse side-effect of modern work, but part of its purpose under the imperatives of growth, profitability, and constant innovation, as evident in phenomena such as planned obsolescence or the ‘scrapping premium’, serving to stimulate growth and demand, and hence, job creation (Gronemeyer 2012). These conditions and effects tend to be neglected when ‘green jobs’ are promised to resolve the ecological crisis (Paus 2018), disregarding that the systematically and continuously advanced scale of work and production has grown far beyond sustainable limits (Haberl et al. 2009). Unions are intrinsically invested in labor being good – they don’t strike to get rid of work; they strike to get people back to work. Lundström 14: Lundström, Ragnar; Räthzel, Nora; Uzzell, David {Uzell is Professor (Emeritus) of Environmental Psychology at the University of Surrey with a BA Geography from the University of Liverpool, a PhD Psychology from the University of Surrey, and a MSc in Social Psychology from London School of Economics and Political Science, University of London. Lundstrom is Associate professor at Department of Sociology at Umea University. Rathzel is an Affiliated as professor emerita at Department of Sociology at Umea University.}, 14 - ("Disconnected spaces: introducing environmental perspectives into the trade union agenda top-down and bottom-up," Taylor and Francis, 12-11-2014, https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/23251042.2015.1041212?scroll=topandamp;needAccess=true)//marlborough-wr/ Even though there was support for environmental perspectives in LO at this time – after all, the National Congress commissioned the programme, an environmental unit was established at headquarters and a majority of the congress accepted the programme – this waned significantly when the economy was threatened. This reflects the influence of the ‘jobs vs. environment’ conflict on processes of integrating environmental perspectives into the union agenda (Räthzel and Uzzell 2011). Union policies are embedded in a mode of production marked by what Marx called the ‘metabolic rift’. The concept is one of the pillars upon which Foster develops ‘Marx’s Ecology’ (Foster 2000, 155 f). It argues that the capitalist industrial system exploits the earth without restoring its constituents to it. More generally, Marx defined the labour process as metabolism (Stoffwechsel) between nature (external to humans) and human nature. When humans work on and with nature to produce the means of their survival, they also develop their knowledge and their capabilities, and transform their own human nature (Marx 1998). Polanyi later reduced the concept of the ‘metabolic rift’ to the commodification of land (Polanyi 1944), thus paving the way for a perspective that sees the solution in the control of the market, but disregards the relations of production as they are lived by workers in the production process. But to understand why trade unions have difficulties developing and especially holding on to environmental policies it is important to recognise that since nature has become a privately owned ‘means of production’ it has become workers’ Other. Unions have been reduced and have reduced themselves to care only for one part of the inseparable relationship between nature and labour. On the everyday level of policies this means that environmental strategies lose momentum in times of economic crises and when jobs are seen to be threatened. In this respect, unions are no different from political parties and governments. In spite of numerous publications by the ILO and Union organisations, which show that a move to a ‘green economy’ can create new jobs (Poschen 2012; Rivera Alejo and Martín Murillo 2014), unions have been reluctant to exchange ‘a bird in the hand for two in the bush’ – even if the bird in the hand becomes elusive. The alternative is rejecting the affirmative to embrace postwork – it questions the centrality of work and ontological attachments to productivity to enable emancipatory transformation of society to an ecologically sustainable form. Your ballot symbolizes an answer to the question of whether work can be used as the solution to social ills. The plan doesn’t “happen,” and you are conditioned to valorize work – vote neg to interrogate these ideological assumptions. Hoffmann, 20 (Maja, "Resolving the ‘jobs-environment-dilemma’? The case for critiques of work in sustainability research. Taylor and Francis, 4-1-2020, https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/23251042.2020.1790718)//usc-br/ What is postwork? How can a ‘postwork’ approach contribute to resolving these issues? The notions critique of work (Frayne 2015a, 2015b) or postwork (Weeks 2011) have emerged in recent years in social science research and popular culture, building on a long intellectual tradition of (autonomist and neo-)Marxist, anarchist, and feminist theory (Seyferth 2019; Weeks 2011). The critique of work targets work in a fundamental sense, not only its conditions or exploitation. It is aimed at the centrality of work in modern ‘work society’ as a pivotal point for the provision of livelihoods through monetary income, the granting of social security, social inclusion, and personal identity construction, on which grounds unemployed persons and unpaid activities are excluded from recognition, welfare provision and trade union support. Moreover, the crucial role of waged work in the functioning of the welfare state and the modern industrialised economy is part of this critique (Chamberlain 2018; Frayne 2015b; Paulsen 2017). Although commonly taken as naturally given, this kind of societal order and its institutions such as the wage relation, labour markets, unemployment, or abstract time are historically and culturally exceptional modes of human coexistence (Applebaum 1992; Graeber 2018; Gorz 1989; Polanyi 2001 1944; Thompson 1967). This critique of the structures and social relations of work society is accompanied by the critique of its cultural foundation, the work ethic; an ideological commitment to work and productivism as ends in themselves, moral obligations, and as intrinsically good, regardless of what is done and at what cost (Gorz 1982; Weber 1992 1905; Weeks 2001). Postwork, however, is not only a critical stance. Criticising work and work society, aware of their historical contingency, implies the potential for an emancipatory transformation of industrial society. The focus is thereby not necessarily on abolishing work tout-court, but rather on pointing out and questioning its relentless centrality and asking what a more desirable, free and sustainable society might look like; a society in which work is no longer the pivotal point of social organisation and ideological orientation, including all questions and debates around this objective (Chamberlain 2018; Frayne 2015a; Weeks 2011). As a relatively new and dynamically developing approach, postwork is, despite similar political claims, not uniform in its reasoning. Some, drawing on the classical ‘end-of-work’ argument (Frayne 2016), assume an imminent technology-induced massive rise in unemployment. This is welcomed as an opportunity to reduce and ultimately abolish work to liberate humankind (Srnicek and Williams 2015). Others emphasise the remarkable fact that throughout the past two centuries technological development has not challenged the centrality of work in modern lives, despite the prospect that technological change would allow for much shorter working hours (e.g., Keynes 1930). This has not materialised due to the requirements of a work-centred, work-dependent society. On the contrary, work has become more central to modern societies. These deeper structural and cultural aspects and dependencies seem to remain unaffected by technological trends (Paulsen 2017; Weeks 2011). The ecological case for postwork The perspective of postwork/critiques of work may enrich sustainability debates in many ways; here, our focus is again on ecological concerns. First, postwork offers a much needed change in focus in sustainability debates, away from narrow critiques of individual consumption and the overemphasis on ‘green jobs’, towards understanding work as one central cause of sustained societal unsustainability. Postwork directs the focus towards crucial overlooked issues, e.g. the ways in which work is ecologically harmful, or which problems arise due to the social and cultural significance of modern-day work, including existential dependencies on it. Postwork seeks to re-politicise work, recognising that its conception and societal organisation are social constructs and therefore political, and must accordingly be open to debate (Weeks 2011). This opens conceptual space and enables open-minded debates about the meaning, value and purpose of work: what kind of work is, for individuals, society and the biosphere as a whole, meaningful, pointless, or outright harmful (Graeber 2018)? Such debates and enhanced understanding about the means and ends of work, and the range of problems associated with it, would be important in several regards. In ecological regard it facilitates the ecologically necessary, substantial reduction of work, production and consumption (Frey 2019; Haberl et al. 2009). Reducing work/working hours is one of the key premises of postwork, aiming at de-centring and de-normalising work, and releasing time, energy and creativity for purposes other than work (Coote 2013). From an ecological perspective, reducing the amount of work would reduce the dependency on a commodity-intensive mode of living, and allow space for more sustainable practices (Frayne 2016). Reducing work would also help mitigate all other work-induced environmental pressures described above, especially the ‘Scale factor’ (Knight, Rosa, and Schor 2013), i.e. the amount of resources and energy consumed, and waste, including emissions, created through work. A postwork approach facilitates debate on the politics of ecological work reduction which entails difficult questions: for example, which industries and fields of employment are to be phased out? Which fields will need to be favoured and upon what grounds? Which kinds of work in which sectors are socially important and should therefore be organised differently, especially when altering the energy basis of work due to climate change mitigation which implies decentralised, locally specific, intermittent and less concentrated energy sources (Malm 2013)? These questions are decisive for future (un-)sustainability, and yet serious attempts at a solution are presently forestalled by the unquestioned sanctity that work, ‘jobs’ or ‘full employment’ enjoy (Frayne 2015b). Postwork is also conducive to rethinking the organisation of work. There are plausible arguments in favour of new institutions of democratic control over the economy, i.e. economic democracy (Johanisova and Wolf 2012). This is urgent and necessary to distribute a very tight remaining carbon budget fairly and wisely (IPCC 2018), to keep economic power in check, and to gain public sovereignty over fundamental economic decisions that are pivotal for (un-)sustainable trajectories (Gould, Pellow, and Schnaiberg 2004). An obstacle to this is one institution in particular which is rarely under close scrutiny: the labour market, a social construct linked to the advent of modern work in form of the commodity of labour (Applebaum 1992). It is an undemocratic mechanism, usually characterised by high levels of unfreedom and coercion (Anderson 2017; Graeber 2018; Paulsen 2015) that allocates waged work in a competitive mode as an artificially scarce, ‘fictitious’ commodity (Polanyi 2001 1944). 4 It does so according to availability of money and motives of gain on the part of employers, and appears therefore inappropriate for distributing labour according to sustainability criteria and related societal needs. As long as unsustainable and/or unnecessary jobs are profitable and/or (well-)paid, they will continue to exist (Gorz 1989), just as ‘green jobs’ must follow these same criteria in order to be created. An ecological postwork perspective allows to question this on ecological grounds, and it links to debates on different modes of organising socially necessary work, production and provisioning in a de-commodified, democratic and sustainable mode. Finally, postwork is helpful for ecological reasons because it criticises the cultural glorification of ‘hard work’, merit and productivism, and the moral assumption that laziness and inaction are intrinsically bad, regardless the circumstances. Postwork is about a different mindset which problematises prevailing productivist attitudes and allows the idea that being lazy or unproductive can be something inherently valuable. Idleness is conducive to an ecological agenda as nothing is evidently more carbon-neutral and environment-sparing than being absolutely unproductive. As time-use studies indicate, leisure, recreation and socialising have very low ecological impacts, with rest and sleep having virtually none (Druckman et al. 2012). Apart from humans, the biosphere also needs idle time for regeneration. In this sense, laziness or ‘ecological leisure’, ideally sleep, can be regarded as supremely ecofriendly states of being that would help mitigate ecological pressures. Moreover, as postwork traces which changes in attitudes towards time, efficiency and laziness have brought modern work culture and modern time regimes into being in the first place and have dominated ever since (Thompson 1967; Weber 1992 1905), it provides crucial knowledge for understanding and potentially changing this historically peculiar construction. It can thereby take inspiration from longstanding traditions throughout human history, where leisure has usually been a high social ideal and regarded as vital for realising genuine freedom and quality of life (Applebaum 1992; Gorz 1989). Conclusions: postwork politics and practices We argued that modern-day work is a central cause for unsustainability, and should therefore be transformed to advance towards sustainability. We have contributed to this field of research, firstly, by developing a systematisation of the ecological harms associated with work – comprising the factors Scale, Time, Income, and Work-induced Mobility, Infrastructure, and Consumption – taking those studies one step further which investigate the ecological impacts of working hours quantitatively. One of the analytical advantages of this approach is that it avoids the mystification of work through indirect measures of economic activity (such as per capita GDP), as in the numerous analyses of the conflict between sustainability and economic growth in general. Our second substantial contribution consists in combining these ecological impacts of work with an analysis of the various structural dependencies on work in modern society, which spells out clearly what the recurring jobs-environment-dilemma actually implies, and why it is so difficult to overcome. While this dilemma is often vaguely referred to, this has been the first more detailed analysis of the different dimensions that essentially constitute it. Reviewing the literature in environmental sociology and sustainability research more generally, we also found the work-environment-dilemma and the role of work itself are not sufficiently addressed and remain major unresolved issues. We proposed the field would benefit from taking up the long intellectual tradition of problematising modern-day work, through the approach of postwork or critiques of work. While the described problems of unsustainability and entrenched dependencies cannot easily be resolved, we discussed how postwork arguments can contribute to pointing out and understanding them, and to opening up new perspectives to advance sustainability debates. A third contribution is therefore to have introduced the concept of postwork/critiques of work into sustainability research and the work-environment debate, and to have conducted an initial analysis of the ways in which postwork may be helpful for tackling ecological problems. Besides being ecologically beneficial, it may also serve emancipatory purposes to ‘raise broader questions about the place of work in our lives and spark the imagination of a life no longer so subordinate to it’ (Weeks 2011, 33). In order to inspire such ‘postwork imagination’ (Weeks 2011, 35, 110) and show that postwork ideas are not as detached from reality as they may sound, in this last section we briefly outline examples of existing postwork politics and practices. The most obvious example is the reduction of working hours during the 19th and 20th centuries. These reforms were essential to the early labour movement, and the notion that increasing productivity entails shorter working hours has never been nearly as ‘radical’ as today (Paulsen 2017). As concerns about climate change are rising, there is also renewed awareness about the ecological benefits of worktime reduction, besides a whole range of other social and economic advantages (Coote 2013; Frey 2019). Worktime reduction is usually taken up positively in public debate. Carlsson (2015, 184) sees a ‘growing minority of people’ who engage in practices other than waged work to support themselves and make meaningful contributions to society. Frayne (2015b) describes the practical refusal of work by average people who wish to live more independently of the treadmill of work. Across society, the disaffection with work is no marginal phenomenon (Graeber 2018; Cederström and Fleming 2012; Paulsen 2014, 2015; Weeks 2011); many start to realise the ‘dissonance between the mythical sanctity of work on the one hand, and the troubling realities of people’s actual experiences on the other’ (Frayne 2015b, 228). Public debates are therefore increasingly receptive to issues such as industries’ responsibility for climate change, coercive ‘workfare’ policies, meaningless ‘bullshit jobs’, or ‘work-life-balance’, shorter hours, overwork and burnout; topics ‘that will not go away’ (Coote 2013, xix) and question the organisation of work society more fundamentally. 5 The debate about an unconditional basic income (UBI) will also remain. UBI would break the existential dependency of livelihoods on paid work and serve as a new kind of social contract to entitle people to social security regardless of paid economic activity. In addition to countless models in theory, examples of UBI schemes exist in practice, either currently implemented or planned as ‘experiments’ (Srnicek and Williams 2015). The critique and refusal of work also takes place both within the sphere of wage labour and outside it. Within, the notions of absenteeism, tardiness, shirking, theft, or sabotage (Pouget 1913 1898; Seyferth 2019) have a long tradition, dating back to early struggles against work and industrialisation (Thompson 1967), and common until today (Paulsen 2014). The idea of such deliberate ‘workplace resistance’ is that the ability to resist meaningless work and the internalised norms of work society, and be idle and useless while at work, can be recognised and successfully practised (Campagna 2013; Scott 2012). Similarly, there is a growing interest in productive practices, social relations, and the commons outside the sphere of wage labour and market relations, for example in community-supported agriculture. This initiates ways of organising work and the economy to satisfy material needs otherwise than by means of commodity consumption (Chamberlain 2018; Helfrich and Bollier 2015). For such modes of organising productive social relations in more varied ways, inspiration could be drawn from the forms of ‘work’ that are prevalent in the global South in the so-called informal sector and in non-industrial crafts and peasantry, neither of which resemble the cultural phenomenon of modern-day work with its origins in the colonial North (Comaroff and Comaroff 1987; Thompson 1967). This, however, contradicts the global development paradigm, under which industrialisation, ‘economic upgrading’, global (labour) market integration and ‘structural transformation’ are pursued. Modern work, especially industrial factory jobs and ideally in cities, is supposed to help ‘the poor’ to escape their misery (Banerjee and Duflo 2012; UNDP 2015). Many of these other forms of livelihood provisioning and associated ways of life are thus disregarded, denigrated or destroyed as underdeveloped, backward, poor, and lazy (Thompson 1967), and drawn into the formal system of waged work as cheap labour in capitalist markets and global supply chains – ‘improved living conditions’ as measured in formal pecuniary income (Rosling 2018; Comaroff and Comaroff 1987). There are indications that these transformations create structural poverty, highly vulnerable jobs and an imposed dependence on wage labour (while few viable wage labour structures exist) (Hickel 2017; Srnicek and Williams 2015). There is also clear evidence of numerous struggles against capitalist development and for traditional livelihood protection and environmental justice (Anguelovski 2015). These are aspects where a postwork orientation is relevant beyond the industrialised societies of the global North, as it puts a focus on the modern phenomenon ‘work’ itself and the conditions that led to its predominance, as it questions the common narrative that ‘jobs’ are an end in themselves and justify all kinds of problematic development, and as it allows to ask which alternative, postcolonial critiques and conceptualisations of ‘work’ exist and should be preserved. To conclude, we clearly find traces of postwork organisation and politics in the present. However, these ideas are contested; they concern the roots of modern culture, society and industrial-capitalist economies. Waged work continues to be normalised, alternatives beyond niches appear quite impractical for generalisation. Powerful economic interests, including trade unions, seek to perpetuate the status-quo (Lundström, Räthzel, and Uzzell 2015). Job creation and (global) labour market integration (regardless of what kind) are central policy goals of all political parties, and presently popular progressive debates on a Green New Deal tend to exhibit a rather productivist stance. There is one particular aspect that appears hopeful: the present socio-economic system is unsustainable in the literal sense that it is physically impossible to be sustained in the long run. It was Weber (19921905) who predicted that the powerful cosmos of the modern economic order will be determining with overwhelming force until the last bit of fossil fuel is burnt – and exactly this needs to happen soon to avert catastrophic climate change. 6 This is the battlefield of sustainability, and lately there has been renewed urgency and momentum for more profound social change, where it might be realised that a different societal trajectory beyond work and productivism for their own sake is more sustainable and desirable for the future.
Case Econ turn Growth is surging. Halloran ’9-14 Michael; 2021; M.B.A. from Carnegie Mellon University, former aerospace research engineer, Equity Strategist; Janney, “Despite Potential Headwinds, Key Labor Market Indicators Bode Well for the Economy,” https://www.janney.com/latest-articles-commentary/all-insights/insights/2021/09/14/despite-potential-headwinds-key-labor-market-indicators-bode-well-for-the-economy However, we remain encouraged by the recovery that has been unfolding since the economy began reopening. We continue to see improvement in important cyclical sectors of the economy while consumers are historically healthy and still have pent-up demand. Business confidence has rebounded with strong corporate profits that should support further capital spending and hiring (there are now more job openings than there are unemployed people by a record amount). We expect to see further improvement in the international backdrop, supported by unprecedented fiscal and monetary stimulus and accelerating rates of vaccination. Although the impact of the Delta wave is still being felt, recent evidence confirms the effectiveness of vaccines in limiting deaths and hospitalizations. With the pace of vaccination now picking up in the areas most impacted by this wave—Asia and Australia—the case for fading headwinds leading to improving economic growth later this year remains positive. The signals from financial markets themselves remain positive. Despite consolidating last week, stocks remain near record highs while the 10-year Treasury remains well above the lows of earlier this summer when concerns about Delta first emerged. These factors support our view of a durable economic recovery from the pandemic that should continue supporting stock prices. A healthy labor market is a critical element for a sustainable recovery that supports profit growth and last week’s news from the labor market remains COVID creates an economic brink---recovery is strong now because of effective monetary policy, but we’ve hit the zero-lower bound. Christopher Rugaber 21. Associated Press. “Federal Reserve keeps key interest rate near zero, signals COVID-19 economic risks receding.” https://www.chicagotribune.com/business/ct-biz-fed-interest-rates-economy-20210428-bumyc3ynpza6ri4ygsntmdsmya-story.html. WASHINGTON — The Federal Reserve is keeping its ultra-low interest rate policies in place, a sign that it wants to see more evidence of a strengthening economic recovery before it would consider easing its support. In a statement Wednesday, the Fed expressed a brighter outlook, saying the economy has improved along with the job market. And while the policymakers noted that inflation has risen, they ascribed the increase to temporary factors. The Fed also signaled its belief that the pandemic’s threat to the economy has diminished, a significant point given Chair Jerome Powell’s long-stated view that the recovery depends on the virus being brought under control. Last month, the Fed had cautioned that the virus posed “considerable risks to the economic outlook.” On Wednesday, it said only that “risks to the economic outlook remain” because of the pandemic. The central bank left its benchmark short-term rate near zero, where it’s been since the pandemic erupted nearly a year ago, to help keep loan rates down to encourage borrowing and spending. It also said in a statement after its latest policy meeting that it would keep buying $120 billion in bonds each month to try to keep longer-term borrowing rates low. The U.S. economy has been posting unexpectedly strong gains in recent weeks, with barometers of hiring, spending and manufacturing all surging. Most economists say they detect the early stages of what could be a robust and sustained recovery, with coronavirus case counts declining, vaccinations rising and Americans spending their stimulus-boosted savings. Strikes hurt critical core industries that is necessary for economic growth John McElroy, 2019, Strikes Hurt Everybody.Wards Auto Industry News, October 25, https://www.wardsauto.com/ideaxchange/strikes-hurt-everybody This creates a poisonous relationship between the company and its workforce. Many GM hourly workers don’t identify as GM employees. They identify as UAW members. And they see the union as the source of their jobs, not the company. It’s an unhealthy dynamic that puts GM at a disadvantage to non-union automakers in the U.S. like Honda and Toyota, where workers take pride in the company they work for and the products they make. Attacking the company in the media also drives away customers. Who wants to buy a shiny new car from a company that’s accused of underpaying its workers and treating them unfairly? Data from the Center for Automotive Research (CAR) in Ann Arbor, MI, show that GM loses market share during strikes and never gets it back. GM lost two percentage points during the 1998 strike, which in today’s market would represent a loss of 340,000 sales. Because GM reports sales on a quarterly basis we’ll only find out at the end of December if it lost market share from this strike. UAW members say one of their greatest concerns is job security. But causing a company to lose market share is a sure-fire path to more plant closings and layoffs. Even so, unions are incredibly important for boosting wages and benefits for working-class people. GM’s UAW-represented workers earn considerably more than their non-union counterparts, about $26,000 more per worker, per year, in total compensation. Without a union they never would have achieved that. Strikes are a powerful weapon for unions. They usually are the only way they can get management to accede to their demands. If not for the power of collective bargaining and the threat of a strike, management would largely ignore union demands. If you took away that threat, management would pay its workers peanuts. Just ask the Mexican line workers who are paid $1.50 an hour to make $50,000 BMWs. But strikes don’t just hurt the people walking the picket lines or the company they’re striking against. They hurt suppliers, car dealers and the communities located near the plants. The Anderson Economic Group estimates that 75,000 workers at supplier companies were temporarily laid off because of the GM strike. Unlike UAW picketers, those supplier workers won’t get any strike pay or an $11,000 contract signing bonus. No, most of them lost close to a month’s worth of wages, which must be financially devastating for them. GM’s suppliers also lost a lot of money. So now they’re cutting budgets and delaying capital investments to make up for the lost revenue, which is a further drag on the economy. According to CAR, the communities and states where GM’s plants are located collectively lost a couple of hundred million dollars in payroll and tax revenue. Some economists warn that if the strike were prolonged it could knock the state of Michigan – home to GM and the UAW – into a recession. That prompted the governor of Michigan, Gretchen Whitmer, to call GM CEO Mary Barra and UAW leaders and urge them to settle as fast as possible. So, while the UAW managed to get a nice raise for its members, the strike left a path of destruction in its wake. That’s not fair to the innocent bystanders who will never regain what they lost. John McElroyI’m not sure how this will ever be resolved. I understand the need for collective bargaining and the threat of a strike. But there’s got to be a better way to get workers a raise without torching the countryside. Strikes create a stigmatization effect over labor and consumption that devastates the economy Tenza 20, Mlungisi. "The effects of violent strikes on the economy of a developing country: a case of South Africa." Obiter 41.3 (2020): 519-537. (Senior Lecturer, University of KwaZulu-Natal) When South Africa obtained democracy in 1994, there was a dream of a better country with a new vision for industrial relations.5 However, the number of violent strikes that have bedevilled this country in recent years seems to have shattered-down the aspirations of a better South Africa. South Africa recorded 114 strikes in 2013 and 88 strikes in 2014, which cost the country about R6.1 billion according to the Department of Labour.6 The impact of these strikes has been hugely felt by the mining sector, particularly the platinum industry. The biggest strike took place in the platinum sector where about 70 000 mineworkers’ downed tools for better wages. Three major platinum producers (Impala, Anglo American and Lonmin Platinum Mines) were affected. The strike started on 23 January 2014 and ended on 25 June 2014. Business Day reported that “the five-month-long strike in the platinum sector pushed the economy to the brink of recession”. 7 This strike was closely followed by a four-week strike in the metal and engineering sector. All these strikes (and those not mentioned here) were characterised with violence accompanied by damage to property, intimidation, assault and sometimes the killing of people. Statistics from the metal and engineering sector showed that about 246 cases of intimidation were reported, 50 violent incidents occurred, and 85 cases of vandalism were recorded.8 Large-scale unemployment, soaring poverty levels and the dramatic income inequality that characterise the South African labour market provide a broad explanation for strike violence.9 While participating in a strike, workers’ stress levels leave them feeling frustrated at their seeming powerlessness, which in turn provokes further violent behaviour.10 These strikes are not only violent but take long to resolve. Generally, a lengthy strike has a negative effect on employment, reduces business confidence and increases the risk of economic stagflation. In addition, such strikes have a major setback on the growth of the economy and investment opportunities. It is common knowledge that consumer spending is directly linked to economic growth. At the same time, if the economy is not showing signs of growth, employment opportunities are shed, and poverty becomes the end result. The economy of South Africa is in need of rapid growth to enable it to deal with the high levels of unemployment and resultant poverty. One of the measures that may boost the country’s economic growth is by attracting potential investors to invest in the country. However, this might be difficult as investors would want to invest in a country where there is a likelihood of getting returns for their investments. The wish of getting returns for investment may not materialise if the labour environment is not fertile for such investments as a result of, for example, unstable labour relations. Therefore, investors may be reluctant to invest where there is an unstable or fragile labour relations environment. 3 THE COMMISSION OF VIOLENCE DURING A STRIKE AND CONSEQUENCES The Constitution guarantees every worker the right to join a trade union, participate in the activities and programmes of a trade union, and to strike. 11 The Constitution grants these rights to a “worker” as an individual.12 However, the right to strike and any other conduct in contemplation or furtherance of a strike such as a picket13 can only be exercised by workers acting collectively.14 The right to strike and participation in the activities of a trade union were given more effect through the enactment of the Labour Relations Act 66 of 199515 (LRA). The main purpose of the LRA is to “advance economic development, social justice, labour peace and the democratisation of the workplace”. 16 The advancement of social justice means that the exercise of the right to strike must advance the interests of workers and at the same time workers must refrain from any conduct that can affect those who are not on strike as well members of society. Even though the right to strike and the right to participate in the activities of a trade union that often flow from a strike17 are guaranteed in the Constitution and specifically regulated by the LRA, it sometimes happens that the right to strike is exercised for purposes not intended by the Constitution and the LRA, generally. 18 For example, it was not the intention of the Constitutional Assembly and the legislature that violence should be used during strikes or pickets. As the Constitution provides, pickets are meant to be peaceful. 19 Contrary to section 17 of the Constitution, the conduct of workers participating in a strike or picket has changed in recent years with workers trying to emphasise their grievances by causing disharmony and chaos in public. A media report by the South African Institute of Race Relations pointed out that between the years 1999 and 2012 there were 181 strike-related deaths, 313 injuries and 3,058 people were arrested for public violence associated with strikes.20 The question is whether employers succumb easily to workers’ demands if a strike is accompanied by violence? In response to this question, one worker remarked as follows: “There is no sweet strike, there is no Christian strike … A strike is a strike. You want to get back what belongs to you ... you won’t win a strike with a Bible. You do not wear high heels and carry an umbrella and say ‘1992 was under apartheid, 2007 is under ANC’. You won’t win a strike like that.” 21 The use of violence during industrial action affects not only the strikers or picketers, the employer and his or her business but it also affects innocent members of the public, non-striking employees, the environment and the economy at large. In addition, striking workers visit non-striking workers’ homes, often at night, threaten them and in some cases, assault or even murder workers who are acting as replacement labour. 22 This points to the fact that for many workers and their families’ living conditions remain unsafe and vulnerable to damage due to violence. In Security Services Employers Organisation v SA Transport and Allied Workers Union (SATAWU),23 it was reported that about 20 people were thrown out of moving trains in the Gauteng province; most of them were security guards who were not on strike and who were believed to be targeted by their striking colleagues. Two of them died, while others were admitted to hospitals with serious injuries.24 In SA Chemical Catering and Allied Workers Union v Check One (Pty) Ltd,25 striking employees were carrying various weapons ranging from sticks, pipes, planks and bottles. One of the strikers Mr Nqoko was alleged to have threatened to cut the throats of those employees who had been brought from other branches of the employer’s business to help in the branch where employees were on strike. Such conduct was held not to be in line with good conduct of striking.26 These examples from case law show that South Africa is facing a problem that is affecting not only the industrial relations’ sector but also the economy at large. For example, in 2012, during a strike by workers employed by Lonmin in Marikana, the then-new union Association of Mine and Construction Workers Union (AMCU) wanted to exert its presence after it appeared that many workers were not happy with the way the majority union, National Union of Mine Workers (NUM), handled negotiations with the employer (Lonmin Mine). AMCU went on an unprotected strike which was violent and resulted in the loss of lives, damage to property and negative economic consequences including a weakened currency, reduced global investment, declining productivity, and increase unemployment in the affected sectors.27 Further, the unreasonably long time it takes for strikes to get resolved in the Republic has a negative effect on the business of the employer, the economy and employment. 3 1 Effects of violent and long strikes on the economy Generally, South Africa’s economy is on a downward scale. First, it fails to create employment opportunities for its people. The recent statistics on unemployment levels indicate that unemployment has increased from 26.5 to 27.2. 28 The most prominent strike which nearly brought the platinum industries to its knees was the strike convened by AMCU in 2014. The strike started on 23 January 2014 and ended on 24 June 2014. It affected the three big platinum producers in the Republic, which are the Anglo American Platinum, Lonmin Plc and Impala Platinum. It was the longest strike since the dawn of democracy in 1994. As a result of this strike, the platinum industries lost billions of rands.29 According to the report by Economic Research Southern Africa, the platinum group metals industry is South Africa’s second-largest export earner behind gold and contributes just over 2 of the country’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP).30 The overall metal ores in the mining industry which include platinum sells about 70 of its output to the export market while sales to local manufacturers of basic metals, fabricated metal products and various other metal equipment and machinery make up to 20. 31 The research indicates that the overall impact of the strike in 2014 was driven by a reduction in productive capital in the mining sector, accompanied by a decrease in labour available to the economy. This resulted in a sharp increase in the price of the output by 5.8 with a GDP declined by 0.72 and 0.78.32 Links
None of their cards make any attempt to say they solve all of income inequality. No brink for how much income inequality they actually have to solve for to avoid this extinction scenario- reducing inequality isn’t enough
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Postwork K
Tournament: Hollywood Invitational | Round: 4 | Opponent: Harker DV | Judge: Leah Clark-Villanueva Neg NC –Postwork K The aff’s refusal to work is not a refusal of work – their endorsement of striking reinforces the belief that withholding labor puts people in a position of power. This reduces humans to labor capital, which causes work-dependency and inhibits alternatives. Hoffmann, 20 (Maja, "Resolving the ‘jobs-environment-dilemma’? The case for critiques of work in sustainability research. Taylor and Francis, 4-1-2020, https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/23251042.2020.1790718)//usc-br/ The societal dependence on work If work is associated with environmental pressures in at least four different ways, why do we have to maintain it at constant or increased levels? We hold that in industrial society four distinct levels of structural and cultural dependency on work may be discerned. These are to be understood as broad analytical categories which in reality comprise and cross individual and structural levels in various ways, and are all interdependent. Personal dependence. A first aspect is individual or personal dependence on work: Work as regular, gainful employment constitutes one of the central social relations in modern ‘work society’ and is a central point of reference in people’s lives. As a principal source of income, waged work fulfils the existential function of providing livelihoods and social security. It is constructed to secure basic social rights, social integration, recognition, status, and personal identity (Frayne 2015b; Weeks 2011). This is probably why ‘social’ is so often equated with ‘work’. State dependence. Secondly, dependence on work pertains to the modern welfare state: the revenues and economic growth generated through work contribute substantially to the financing of social security systems. Affording welfare is therefore a main argument for creating jobs. Wage labour is thus a dominating tool for redistribution; through wages, taxes on wages and on the consumption that production generates, almost all distribution takes place. Hence, what the job is, and what is being produced, is of secondary importance (Paulsen 2017). Work is moreover a convenient instrument of control that structures and disciplines society, and ‘renders populations at once productive and governable’ (Weeks 2011, 54; Gorz 1982; Lafargue 2014 1883). Specifically, the dominant neoliberal ideology, its condemnation of laziness and idealisation of ‘hardworking people’ has intensified the ‘moral fortification of work’. Accordingly, the neoliberal ‘workfare’ reforms have focused on job creation and the relentless activation for the labour market, effectively ‘enforcing work (…) as a key function of the state’ (Frayne 2015b, 16). Economic dependence. Thirdly, besides the economic imperative for individuals to ‘earn a living’ and pay off debt, modern economies are dependent on work in terms of an industrious labour force, long working hours for increasing economic output under the imperatives of capital accumulation, growth and competition, and rising incomes for increasing purchasing power and demand. Creating or preserving jobs constitutes the standard argument for economic growth. In turn, work as one basic factor of production creates growth. However, the relation between growth and employment is conditioned, amongst other factors, primarily by constantly pursued labour productivity: for employment to rise or stay stable, the economy must grow at a sufficiently high rate to exceed productivity gains, in order to offset job losses and avoid ‘jobless growth’. Moreover, faltering expansion triggers a spiral of recession which not only affects economic stability but results in societal crises as a whole (Jackson 2009; Paech 2012). However, besides being unsustainable and insatiable, growth is also increasingly unlikely to continue at the rates required for economic stability (Kallis et al. 2018; IMF 2015). The individual and structural economic dependence on work and economic growth therefore implies profound vulnerability as livelihoods and political stability are fatefully exposed to global competition and the capitalist imperative of capital accumulation, and constrained by ‘systemically relevant’ job and growth creating companies, industries and global (financial) markets (Gronemeyer 2012; Paech 2012). Cultural dependence. A fourth aspect concerns cultural dependence: The ‘work ethic’ is the specific morality described by Max Weber (19921905) as constitutive of modern industrial culture, 2 and determining for all its subjects as shared ‘common senses’ about how work is valued and understood. It means an ingrained moral compulsion to gainful work and timesaving, manifested in the common ideals of productivity, achievement and entrepreneurship, in the feeling of guilt when time is ‘wasted’, in personal identification with one’s ‘calling’, in observations of busyness, even burnout as a ‘badge of honour’ (Paulsen 2014), and in descriptions of a culture that has lost the ‘capacity to relax in the old, uninhibited ways’ (Thompson 1967, 91). Even for those who do not share such attitudes towards work, in a work-centred culture it is normal to (seek) work. It is so commonsensical that it seems impractical to question it, and it continues to be normalised through socialisation and schooling. Consequently, people become limited in their imagination of alternatives, the prospect of losing one’s job usually causes heartfelt fear (Standing 2011). For a work society that ‘does no longer know of those other higher and more meaningful activities for the sake of which this freedom would deserve to be won’, there can be nothing worse than the cessation of work (Hannah Arendt, cited in Gorz 1989, 7–8). The wage relation based on the commodity labour is, in other words, an essential functional feature of the industrial-capitalist system, and the exaltation of work remains its social ethic. For modern industrial society work is ‘both its chief means and its ultimate goal’ (Gorz 1989, 13; Weber 1992 1905; Weeks 2011); it is centred and structurally dependent on work, despite work’s environmentally adverse implications. This constellation constitutes the dilemma between work and the environment, and it is why we argue that work is absolutely central to present-day unsustainability and should accordingly be dealt with in sustainability research. Work necessitates material throughput and waste that destroys the environment, even when the jobs are ‘green’ Hoffmann, 20 (Maja, "Resolving the ‘jobs-environment-dilemma’? The case for critiques of work in sustainability research. Taylor and Francis, 4-1-2020, https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/23251042.2020.1790718)//usc-br/ An ecological critique of work What is the problem with modern-day work from an environmental perspective? A number of quantitative studies have researched the correlation of working hours and environmental impacts in terms of ecological footprint, carbon footprint, greenhouse gas emissions, and energy consumption, both on micro/household and on macro/cross-national levels, and for both ‘developed’ and ‘developing’ countries (Fitzgerald, Jorgenson, and Clark 2015; Hayden and Shandra 2009; Knight, Rosa, and Schor 2013; Nässén and Larsson 2015; Rosnick and Weisbrot 2007). Based on these findings, and going beyond them, we develop a qualitative classification of ecological impacts of work broadly (not working hours only), distinguishing four analytically distinct factors (Hoffmann 2017). Fundamentally, all productive activity is based on material and energy throughputs within wider ecological conditions, which necessarily involves interference with the ecosphere. The appropriation and exploitation of non-human animals, land, soil, water, biomass, raw materials, the atmosphere and all other elements of the biosphere always to some extent causes pollution, degradation, and destruction. Thus, work is inherently both productive and destructive. However, this biophysical basis alone need not make work unsustainable, and it has not always been so (Krausmann 2017). Contributing to its unsustainability is, firstly, the Scale factor: the greater the amount of work, the more ‘inputs’ are required and the more ‘outputs’ generated, which means more throughput of resources and energy, and resulting ecological impacts. In other words, the more work, the larger the size of the economy, the more demands on the biosphere (Hayden and Shandra 2009; Knight, Rosa, and Schor 2013). Obviously, there are qualitative differences between different types of work and their respective environmental impacts. Moreover, besides the evident and direct impacts, indirect impacts matter also. The tertiary/service sector is therefore not exempt from this reasoning (Hayden and Shandra 2009; Knight, Rosa, and Schor 2013), not only due to its own (often ‘embodied’) materiality and energy requirements, but also because it administrates and supports industrial production processes in global supply chains (Fitzgerald, Jorgenson, and Clark 2015; Haberl et al. 2009; Paech 2012). Additionally, modern work is subject to certain integrally connected and mutually reinforcing conditions inherent in industrial economic structures, which aggravate ecological impacts by further increasing the Scale factor. These include the systematic externalisation of costs, and the use of fossil fuels as crucial energy basis, which combined with modern industrial technology enable continuously rising labour productivity independently of physical, spatial or temporal constraints (Malm 2013). Taken together, this leads to constantly spurred economic growth with a corresponding growth in material and energetic throughputs, and the creation of massive amounts of waste. The latter is not an adverse side-effect of modern work, but part of its purpose under the imperatives of growth, profitability, and constant innovation, as evident in phenomena such as planned obsolescence or the ‘scrapping premium’, serving to stimulate growth and demand, and hence, job creation (Gronemeyer 2012). These conditions and effects tend to be neglected when ‘green jobs’ are promised to resolve the ecological crisis (Paus 2018), disregarding that the systematically and continuously advanced scale of work and production has grown far beyond sustainable limits (Haberl et al. 2009). Unions are intrinsically invested in labor being good – they don’t strike to get rid of work; they strike to get people back to work. Lundström 14: Lundström, Ragnar; Räthzel, Nora; Uzzell, David {Uzell is Professor (Emeritus) of Environmental Psychology at the University of Surrey with a BA Geography from the University of Liverpool, a PhD Psychology from the University of Surrey, and a MSc in Social Psychology from London School of Economics and Political Science, University of London. Lundstrom is Associate professor at Department of Sociology at Umea University. Rathzel is an Affiliated as professor emerita at Department of Sociology at Umea University.}, 14 - ("Disconnected spaces: introducing environmental perspectives into the trade union agenda top-down and bottom-up," Taylor and Francis, 12-11-2014, https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/23251042.2015.1041212?scroll=topandamp;needAccess=true)//marlborough-wr/ Even though there was support for environmental perspectives in LO at this time – after all, the National Congress commissioned the programme, an environmental unit was established at headquarters and a majority of the congress accepted the programme – this waned significantly when the economy was threatened. This reflects the influence of the ‘jobs vs. environment’ conflict on processes of integrating environmental perspectives into the union agenda (Räthzel and Uzzell 2011). Union policies are embedded in a mode of production marked by what Marx called the ‘metabolic rift’. The concept is one of the pillars upon which Foster develops ‘Marx’s Ecology’ (Foster 2000, 155 f). It argues that the capitalist industrial system exploits the earth without restoring its constituents to it. More generally, Marx defined the labour process as metabolism (Stoffwechsel) between nature (external to humans) and human nature. When humans work on and with nature to produce the means of their survival, they also develop their knowledge and their capabilities, and transform their own human nature (Marx 1998). Polanyi later reduced the concept of the ‘metabolic rift’ to the commodification of land (Polanyi 1944), thus paving the way for a perspective that sees the solution in the control of the market, but disregards the relations of production as they are lived by workers in the production process. But to understand why trade unions have difficulties developing and especially holding on to environmental policies it is important to recognise that since nature has become a privately owned ‘means of production’ it has become workers’ Other. Unions have been reduced and have reduced themselves to care only for one part of the inseparable relationship between nature and labour. On the everyday level of policies this means that environmental strategies lose momentum in times of economic crises and when jobs are seen to be threatened. In this respect, unions are no different from political parties and governments. In spite of numerous publications by the ILO and Union organisations, which show that a move to a ‘green economy’ can create new jobs (Poschen 2012; Rivera Alejo and Martín Murillo 2014), unions have been reluctant to exchange ‘a bird in the hand for two in the bush’ – even if the bird in the hand becomes elusive. The alternative is rejecting the affirmative to embrace postwork – it questions the centrality of work and ontological attachments to productivity to enable emancipatory transformation of society to an ecologically sustainable form. Your ballot symbolizes an answer to the question of whether work can be used as the solution to social ills. The plan doesn’t “happen,” and you are conditioned to valorize work – vote neg to interrogate these ideological assumptions. Hoffmann, 20 (Maja, "Resolving the ‘jobs-environment-dilemma’? The case for critiques of work in sustainability research. Taylor and Francis, 4-1-2020, https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/23251042.2020.1790718)//usc-br/ What is postwork? How can a ‘postwork’ approach contribute to resolving these issues? The notions critique of work (Frayne 2015a, 2015b) or postwork (Weeks 2011) have emerged in recent years in social science research and popular culture, building on a long intellectual tradition of (autonomist and neo-)Marxist, anarchist, and feminist theory (Seyferth 2019; Weeks 2011). The critique of work targets work in a fundamental sense, not only its conditions or exploitation. It is aimed at the centrality of work in modern ‘work society’ as a pivotal point for the provision of livelihoods through monetary income, the granting of social security, social inclusion, and personal identity construction, on which grounds unemployed persons and unpaid activities are excluded from recognition, welfare provision and trade union support. Moreover, the crucial role of waged work in the functioning of the welfare state and the modern industrialised economy is part of this critique (Chamberlain 2018; Frayne 2015b; Paulsen 2017). Although commonly taken as naturally given, this kind of societal order and its institutions such as the wage relation, labour markets, unemployment, or abstract time are historically and culturally exceptional modes of human coexistence (Applebaum 1992; Graeber 2018; Gorz 1989; Polanyi 2001 1944; Thompson 1967). This critique of the structures and social relations of work society is accompanied by the critique of its cultural foundation, the work ethic; an ideological commitment to work and productivism as ends in themselves, moral obligations, and as intrinsically good, regardless of what is done and at what cost (Gorz 1982; Weber 1992 1905; Weeks 2001). Postwork, however, is not only a critical stance. Criticising work and work society, aware of their historical contingency, implies the potential for an emancipatory transformation of industrial society. The focus is thereby not necessarily on abolishing work tout-court, but rather on pointing out and questioning its relentless centrality and asking what a more desirable, free and sustainable society might look like; a society in which work is no longer the pivotal point of social organisation and ideological orientation, including all questions and debates around this objective (Chamberlain 2018; Frayne 2015a; Weeks 2011). As a relatively new and dynamically developing approach, postwork is, despite similar political claims, not uniform in its reasoning. Some, drawing on the classical ‘end-of-work’ argument (Frayne 2016), assume an imminent technology-induced massive rise in unemployment. This is welcomed as an opportunity to reduce and ultimately abolish work to liberate humankind (Srnicek and Williams 2015). Others emphasise the remarkable fact that throughout the past two centuries technological development has not challenged the centrality of work in modern lives, despite the prospect that technological change would allow for much shorter working hours (e.g., Keynes 1930). This has not materialised due to the requirements of a work-centred, work-dependent society. On the contrary, work has become more central to modern societies. These deeper structural and cultural aspects and dependencies seem to remain unaffected by technological trends (Paulsen 2017; Weeks 2011). The ecological case for postwork The perspective of postwork/critiques of work may enrich sustainability debates in many ways; here, our focus is again on ecological concerns. First, postwork offers a much needed change in focus in sustainability debates, away from narrow critiques of individual consumption and the overemphasis on ‘green jobs’, towards understanding work as one central cause of sustained societal unsustainability. Postwork directs the focus towards crucial overlooked issues, e.g. the ways in which work is ecologically harmful, or which problems arise due to the social and cultural significance of modern-day work, including existential dependencies on it. Postwork seeks to re-politicise work, recognising that its conception and societal organisation are social constructs and therefore political, and must accordingly be open to debate (Weeks 2011). This opens conceptual space and enables open-minded debates about the meaning, value and purpose of work: what kind of work is, for individuals, society and the biosphere as a whole, meaningful, pointless, or outright harmful (Graeber 2018)? Such debates and enhanced understanding about the means and ends of work, and the range of problems associated with it, would be important in several regards. In ecological regard it facilitates the ecologically necessary, substantial reduction of work, production and consumption (Frey 2019; Haberl et al. 2009). Reducing work/working hours is one of the key premises of postwork, aiming at de-centring and de-normalising work, and releasing time, energy and creativity for purposes other than work (Coote 2013). From an ecological perspective, reducing the amount of work would reduce the dependency on a commodity-intensive mode of living, and allow space for more sustainable practices (Frayne 2016). Reducing work would also help mitigate all other work-induced environmental pressures described above, especially the ‘Scale factor’ (Knight, Rosa, and Schor 2013), i.e. the amount of resources and energy consumed, and waste, including emissions, created through work. A postwork approach facilitates debate on the politics of ecological work reduction which entails difficult questions: for example, which industries and fields of employment are to be phased out? Which fields will need to be favoured and upon what grounds? Which kinds of work in which sectors are socially important and should therefore be organised differently, especially when altering the energy basis of work due to climate change mitigation which implies decentralised, locally specific, intermittent and less concentrated energy sources (Malm 2013)? These questions are decisive for future (un-)sustainability, and yet serious attempts at a solution are presently forestalled by the unquestioned sanctity that work, ‘jobs’ or ‘full employment’ enjoy (Frayne 2015b). Postwork is also conducive to rethinking the organisation of work. There are plausible arguments in favour of new institutions of democratic control over the economy, i.e. economic democracy (Johanisova and Wolf 2012). This is urgent and necessary to distribute a very tight remaining carbon budget fairly and wisely (IPCC 2018), to keep economic power in check, and to gain public sovereignty over fundamental economic decisions that are pivotal for (un-)sustainable trajectories (Gould, Pellow, and Schnaiberg 2004). An obstacle to this is one institution in particular which is rarely under close scrutiny: the labour market, a social construct linked to the advent of modern work in form of the commodity of labour (Applebaum 1992). It is an undemocratic mechanism, usually characterised by high levels of unfreedom and coercion (Anderson 2017; Graeber 2018; Paulsen 2015) that allocates waged work in a competitive mode as an artificially scarce, ‘fictitious’ commodity (Polanyi 2001 1944). 4 It does so according to availability of money and motives of gain on the part of employers, and appears therefore inappropriate for distributing labour according to sustainability criteria and related societal needs. As long as unsustainable and/or unnecessary jobs are profitable and/or (well-)paid, they will continue to exist (Gorz 1989), just as ‘green jobs’ must follow these same criteria in order to be created. An ecological postwork perspective allows to question this on ecological grounds, and it links to debates on different modes of organising socially necessary work, production and provisioning in a de-commodified, democratic and sustainable mode. Finally, postwork is helpful for ecological reasons because it criticises the cultural glorification of ‘hard work’, merit and productivism, and the moral assumption that laziness and inaction are intrinsically bad, regardless the circumstances. Postwork is about a different mindset which problematises prevailing productivist attitudes and allows the idea that being lazy or unproductive can be something inherently valuable. Idleness is conducive to an ecological agenda as nothing is evidently more carbon-neutral and environment-sparing than being absolutely unproductive. As time-use studies indicate, leisure, recreation and socialising have very low ecological impacts, with rest and sleep having virtually none (Druckman et al. 2012). Apart from humans, the biosphere also needs idle time for regeneration. In this sense, laziness or ‘ecological leisure’, ideally sleep, can be regarded as supremely ecofriendly states of being that would help mitigate ecological pressures. Moreover, as postwork traces which changes in attitudes towards time, efficiency and laziness have brought modern work culture and modern time regimes into being in the first place and have dominated ever since (Thompson 1967; Weber 1992 1905), it provides crucial knowledge for understanding and potentially changing this historically peculiar construction. It can thereby take inspiration from longstanding traditions throughout human history, where leisure has usually been a high social ideal and regarded as vital for realising genuine freedom and quality of life (Applebaum 1992; Gorz 1989). Conclusions: postwork politics and practices We argued that modern-day work is a central cause for unsustainability, and should therefore be transformed to advance towards sustainability. We have contributed to this field of research, firstly, by developing a systematisation of the ecological harms associated with work – comprising the factors Scale, Time, Income, and Work-induced Mobility, Infrastructure, and Consumption – taking those studies one step further which investigate the ecological impacts of working hours quantitatively. One of the analytical advantages of this approach is that it avoids the mystification of work through indirect measures of economic activity (such as per capita GDP), as in the numerous analyses of the conflict between sustainability and economic growth in general. Our second substantial contribution consists in combining these ecological impacts of work with an analysis of the various structural dependencies on work in modern society, which spells out clearly what the recurring jobs-environment-dilemma actually implies, and why it is so difficult to overcome. While this dilemma is often vaguely referred to, this has been the first more detailed analysis of the different dimensions that essentially constitute it. Reviewing the literature in environmental sociology and sustainability research more generally, we also found the work-environment-dilemma and the role of work itself are not sufficiently addressed and remain major unresolved issues. We proposed the field would benefit from taking up the long intellectual tradition of problematising modern-day work, through the approach of postwork or critiques of work. While the described problems of unsustainability and entrenched dependencies cannot easily be resolved, we discussed how postwork arguments can contribute to pointing out and understanding them, and to opening up new perspectives to advance sustainability debates. A third contribution is therefore to have introduced the concept of postwork/critiques of work into sustainability research and the work-environment debate, and to have conducted an initial analysis of the ways in which postwork may be helpful for tackling ecological problems. Besides being ecologically beneficial, it may also serve emancipatory purposes to ‘raise broader questions about the place of work in our lives and spark the imagination of a life no longer so subordinate to it’ (Weeks 2011, 33). In order to inspire such ‘postwork imagination’ (Weeks 2011, 35, 110) and show that postwork ideas are not as detached from reality as they may sound, in this last section we briefly outline examples of existing postwork politics and practices. The most obvious example is the reduction of working hours during the 19th and 20th centuries. These reforms were essential to the early labour movement, and the notion that increasing productivity entails shorter working hours has never been nearly as ‘radical’ as today (Paulsen 2017). As concerns about climate change are rising, there is also renewed awareness about the ecological benefits of worktime reduction, besides a whole range of other social and economic advantages (Coote 2013; Frey 2019). Worktime reduction is usually taken up positively in public debate. Carlsson (2015, 184) sees a ‘growing minority of people’ who engage in practices other than waged work to support themselves and make meaningful contributions to society. Frayne (2015b) describes the practical refusal of work by average people who wish to live more independently of the treadmill of work. Across society, the disaffection with work is no marginal phenomenon (Graeber 2018; Cederström and Fleming 2012; Paulsen 2014, 2015; Weeks 2011); many start to realise the ‘dissonance between the mythical sanctity of work on the one hand, and the troubling realities of people’s actual experiences on the other’ (Frayne 2015b, 228). Public debates are therefore increasingly receptive to issues such as industries’ responsibility for climate change, coercive ‘workfare’ policies, meaningless ‘bullshit jobs’, or ‘work-life-balance’, shorter hours, overwork and burnout; topics ‘that will not go away’ (Coote 2013, xix) and question the organisation of work society more fundamentally. 5 The debate about an unconditional basic income (UBI) will also remain. UBI would break the existential dependency of livelihoods on paid work and serve as a new kind of social contract to entitle people to social security regardless of paid economic activity. In addition to countless models in theory, examples of UBI schemes exist in practice, either currently implemented or planned as ‘experiments’ (Srnicek and Williams 2015). The critique and refusal of work also takes place both within the sphere of wage labour and outside it. Within, the notions of absenteeism, tardiness, shirking, theft, or sabotage (Pouget 1913 1898; Seyferth 2019) have a long tradition, dating back to early struggles against work and industrialisation (Thompson 1967), and common until today (Paulsen 2014). The idea of such deliberate ‘workplace resistance’ is that the ability to resist meaningless work and the internalised norms of work society, and be idle and useless while at work, can be recognised and successfully practised (Campagna 2013; Scott 2012). Similarly, there is a growing interest in productive practices, social relations, and the commons outside the sphere of wage labour and market relations, for example in community-supported agriculture. This initiates ways of organising work and the economy to satisfy material needs otherwise than by means of commodity consumption (Chamberlain 2018; Helfrich and Bollier 2015). For such modes of organising productive social relations in more varied ways, inspiration could be drawn from the forms of ‘work’ that are prevalent in the global South in the so-called informal sector and in non-industrial crafts and peasantry, neither of which resemble the cultural phenomenon of modern-day work with its origins in the colonial North (Comaroff and Comaroff 1987; Thompson 1967). This, however, contradicts the global development paradigm, under which industrialisation, ‘economic upgrading’, global (labour) market integration and ‘structural transformation’ are pursued. Modern work, especially industrial factory jobs and ideally in cities, is supposed to help ‘the poor’ to escape their misery (Banerjee and Duflo 2012; UNDP 2015). Many of these other forms of livelihood provisioning and associated ways of life are thus disregarded, denigrated or destroyed as underdeveloped, backward, poor, and lazy (Thompson 1967), and drawn into the formal system of waged work as cheap labour in capitalist markets and global supply chains – ‘improved living conditions’ as measured in formal pecuniary income (Rosling 2018; Comaroff and Comaroff 1987). There are indications that these transformations create structural poverty, highly vulnerable jobs and an imposed dependence on wage labour (while few viable wage labour structures exist) (Hickel 2017; Srnicek and Williams 2015). There is also clear evidence of numerous struggles against capitalist development and for traditional livelihood protection and environmental justice (Anguelovski 2015). These are aspects where a postwork orientation is relevant beyond the industrialised societies of the global North, as it puts a focus on the modern phenomenon ‘work’ itself and the conditions that led to its predominance, as it questions the common narrative that ‘jobs’ are an end in themselves and justify all kinds of problematic development, and as it allows to ask which alternative, postcolonial critiques and conceptualisations of ‘work’ exist and should be preserved. To conclude, we clearly find traces of postwork organisation and politics in the present. However, these ideas are contested; they concern the roots of modern culture, society and industrial-capitalist economies. Waged work continues to be normalised, alternatives beyond niches appear quite impractical for generalisation. Powerful economic interests, including trade unions, seek to perpetuate the status-quo (Lundström, Räthzel, and Uzzell 2015). Job creation and (global) labour market integration (regardless of what kind) are central policy goals of all political parties, and presently popular progressive debates on a Green New Deal tend to exhibit a rather productivist stance. There is one particular aspect that appears hopeful: the present socio-economic system is unsustainable in the literal sense that it is physically impossible to be sustained in the long run. It was Weber (19921905) who predicted that the powerful cosmos of the modern economic order will be determining with overwhelming force until the last bit of fossil fuel is burnt – and exactly this needs to happen soon to avert catastrophic climate change. 6 This is the battlefield of sustainability, and lately there has been renewed urgency and momentum for more profound social change, where it might be realised that a different societal trajectory beyond work and productivism for their own sake is more sustainable and desirable for the future.
Case Econ turn Growth is surging. Halloran ’9-14 Michael; 2021; M.B.A. from Carnegie Mellon University, former aerospace research engineer, Equity Strategist; Janney, “Despite Potential Headwinds, Key Labor Market Indicators Bode Well for the Economy,” https://www.janney.com/latest-articles-commentary/all-insights/insights/2021/09/14/despite-potential-headwinds-key-labor-market-indicators-bode-well-for-the-economy However, we remain encouraged by the recovery that has been unfolding since the economy began reopening. We continue to see improvement in important cyclical sectors of the economy while consumers are historically healthy and still have pent-up demand. Business confidence has rebounded with strong corporate profits that should support further capital spending and hiring (there are now more job openings than there are unemployed people by a record amount). We expect to see further improvement in the international backdrop, supported by unprecedented fiscal and monetary stimulus and accelerating rates of vaccination. Although the impact of the Delta wave is still being felt, recent evidence confirms the effectiveness of vaccines in limiting deaths and hospitalizations. With the pace of vaccination now picking up in the areas most impacted by this wave—Asia and Australia—the case for fading headwinds leading to improving economic growth later this year remains positive. The signals from financial markets themselves remain positive. Despite consolidating last week, stocks remain near record highs while the 10-year Treasury remains well above the lows of earlier this summer when concerns about Delta first emerged. These factors support our view of a durable economic recovery from the pandemic that should continue supporting stock prices. A healthy labor market is a critical element for a sustainable recovery that supports profit growth and last week’s news from the labor market remains COVID creates an economic brink---recovery is strong now because of effective monetary policy, but we’ve hit the zero-lower bound. Christopher Rugaber 21. Associated Press. “Federal Reserve keeps key interest rate near zero, signals COVID-19 economic risks receding.” https://www.chicagotribune.com/business/ct-biz-fed-interest-rates-economy-20210428-bumyc3ynpza6ri4ygsntmdsmya-story.html. WASHINGTON — The Federal Reserve is keeping its ultra-low interest rate policies in place, a sign that it wants to see more evidence of a strengthening economic recovery before it would consider easing its support. In a statement Wednesday, the Fed expressed a brighter outlook, saying the economy has improved along with the job market. And while the policymakers noted that inflation has risen, they ascribed the increase to temporary factors. The Fed also signaled its belief that the pandemic’s threat to the economy has diminished, a significant point given Chair Jerome Powell’s long-stated view that the recovery depends on the virus being brought under control. Last month, the Fed had cautioned that the virus posed “considerable risks to the economic outlook.” On Wednesday, it said only that “risks to the economic outlook remain” because of the pandemic. The central bank left its benchmark short-term rate near zero, where it’s been since the pandemic erupted nearly a year ago, to help keep loan rates down to encourage borrowing and spending. It also said in a statement after its latest policy meeting that it would keep buying $120 billion in bonds each month to try to keep longer-term borrowing rates low. The U.S. economy has been posting unexpectedly strong gains in recent weeks, with barometers of hiring, spending and manufacturing all surging. Most economists say they detect the early stages of what could be a robust and sustained recovery, with coronavirus case counts declining, vaccinations rising and Americans spending their stimulus-boosted savings. Strikes hurt critical core industries that is necessary for economic growth John McElroy, 2019, Strikes Hurt Everybody.Wards Auto Industry News, October 25, https://www.wardsauto.com/ideaxchange/strikes-hurt-everybody This creates a poisonous relationship between the company and its workforce. Many GM hourly workers don’t identify as GM employees. They identify as UAW members. And they see the union as the source of their jobs, not the company. It’s an unhealthy dynamic that puts GM at a disadvantage to non-union automakers in the U.S. like Honda and Toyota, where workers take pride in the company they work for and the products they make. Attacking the company in the media also drives away customers. Who wants to buy a shiny new car from a company that’s accused of underpaying its workers and treating them unfairly? Data from the Center for Automotive Research (CAR) in Ann Arbor, MI, show that GM loses market share during strikes and never gets it back. GM lost two percentage points during the 1998 strike, which in today’s market would represent a loss of 340,000 sales. Because GM reports sales on a quarterly basis we’ll only find out at the end of December if it lost market share from this strike. UAW members say one of their greatest concerns is job security. But causing a company to lose market share is a sure-fire path to more plant closings and layoffs. Even so, unions are incredibly important for boosting wages and benefits for working-class people. GM’s UAW-represented workers earn considerably more than their non-union counterparts, about $26,000 more per worker, per year, in total compensation. Without a union they never would have achieved that. Strikes are a powerful weapon for unions. They usually are the only way they can get management to accede to their demands. If not for the power of collective bargaining and the threat of a strike, management would largely ignore union demands. If you took away that threat, management would pay its workers peanuts. Just ask the Mexican line workers who are paid $1.50 an hour to make $50,000 BMWs. But strikes don’t just hurt the people walking the picket lines or the company they’re striking against. They hurt suppliers, car dealers and the communities located near the plants. The Anderson Economic Group estimates that 75,000 workers at supplier companies were temporarily laid off because of the GM strike. Unlike UAW picketers, those supplier workers won’t get any strike pay or an $11,000 contract signing bonus. No, most of them lost close to a month’s worth of wages, which must be financially devastating for them. GM’s suppliers also lost a lot of money. So now they’re cutting budgets and delaying capital investments to make up for the lost revenue, which is a further drag on the economy. According to CAR, the communities and states where GM’s plants are located collectively lost a couple of hundred million dollars in payroll and tax revenue. Some economists warn that if the strike were prolonged it could knock the state of Michigan – home to GM and the UAW – into a recession. That prompted the governor of Michigan, Gretchen Whitmer, to call GM CEO Mary Barra and UAW leaders and urge them to settle as fast as possible. So, while the UAW managed to get a nice raise for its members, the strike left a path of destruction in its wake. That’s not fair to the innocent bystanders who will never regain what they lost. John McElroyI’m not sure how this will ever be resolved. I understand the need for collective bargaining and the threat of a strike. But there’s got to be a better way to get workers a raise without torching the countryside. Strikes create a stigmatization effect over labor and consumption that devastates the economy Tenza 20, Mlungisi. "The effects of violent strikes on the economy of a developing country: a case of South Africa." Obiter 41.3 (2020): 519-537. (Senior Lecturer, University of KwaZulu-Natal) When South Africa obtained democracy in 1994, there was a dream of a better country with a new vision for industrial relations.5 However, the number of violent strikes that have bedevilled this country in recent years seems to have shattered-down the aspirations of a better South Africa. South Africa recorded 114 strikes in 2013 and 88 strikes in 2014, which cost the country about R6.1 billion according to the Department of Labour.6 The impact of these strikes has been hugely felt by the mining sector, particularly the platinum industry. The biggest strike took place in the platinum sector where about 70 000 mineworkers’ downed tools for better wages. Three major platinum producers (Impala, Anglo American and Lonmin Platinum Mines) were affected. The strike started on 23 January 2014 and ended on 25 June 2014. Business Day reported that “the five-month-long strike in the platinum sector pushed the economy to the brink of recession”. 7 This strike was closely followed by a four-week strike in the metal and engineering sector. All these strikes (and those not mentioned here) were characterised with violence accompanied by damage to property, intimidation, assault and sometimes the killing of people. Statistics from the metal and engineering sector showed that about 246 cases of intimidation were reported, 50 violent incidents occurred, and 85 cases of vandalism were recorded.8 Large-scale unemployment, soaring poverty levels and the dramatic income inequality that characterise the South African labour market provide a broad explanation for strike violence.9 While participating in a strike, workers’ stress levels leave them feeling frustrated at their seeming powerlessness, which in turn provokes further violent behaviour.10 These strikes are not only violent but take long to resolve. Generally, a lengthy strike has a negative effect on employment, reduces business confidence and increases the risk of economic stagflation. In addition, such strikes have a major setback on the growth of the economy and investment opportunities. It is common knowledge that consumer spending is directly linked to economic growth. At the same time, if the economy is not showing signs of growth, employment opportunities are shed, and poverty becomes the end result. The economy of South Africa is in need of rapid growth to enable it to deal with the high levels of unemployment and resultant poverty. One of the measures that may boost the country’s economic growth is by attracting potential investors to invest in the country. However, this might be difficult as investors would want to invest in a country where there is a likelihood of getting returns for their investments. The wish of getting returns for investment may not materialise if the labour environment is not fertile for such investments as a result of, for example, unstable labour relations. Therefore, investors may be reluctant to invest where there is an unstable or fragile labour relations environment. 3 THE COMMISSION OF VIOLENCE DURING A STRIKE AND CONSEQUENCES The Constitution guarantees every worker the right to join a trade union, participate in the activities and programmes of a trade union, and to strike. 11 The Constitution grants these rights to a “worker” as an individual.12 However, the right to strike and any other conduct in contemplation or furtherance of a strike such as a picket13 can only be exercised by workers acting collectively.14 The right to strike and participation in the activities of a trade union were given more effect through the enactment of the Labour Relations Act 66 of 199515 (LRA). The main purpose of the LRA is to “advance economic development, social justice, labour peace and the democratisation of the workplace”. 16 The advancement of social justice means that the exercise of the right to strike must advance the interests of workers and at the same time workers must refrain from any conduct that can affect those who are not on strike as well members of society. Even though the right to strike and the right to participate in the activities of a trade union that often flow from a strike17 are guaranteed in the Constitution and specifically regulated by the LRA, it sometimes happens that the right to strike is exercised for purposes not intended by the Constitution and the LRA, generally. 18 For example, it was not the intention of the Constitutional Assembly and the legislature that violence should be used during strikes or pickets. As the Constitution provides, pickets are meant to be peaceful. 19 Contrary to section 17 of the Constitution, the conduct of workers participating in a strike or picket has changed in recent years with workers trying to emphasise their grievances by causing disharmony and chaos in public. A media report by the South African Institute of Race Relations pointed out that between the years 1999 and 2012 there were 181 strike-related deaths, 313 injuries and 3,058 people were arrested for public violence associated with strikes.20 The question is whether employers succumb easily to workers’ demands if a strike is accompanied by violence? In response to this question, one worker remarked as follows: “There is no sweet strike, there is no Christian strike … A strike is a strike. You want to get back what belongs to you ... you won’t win a strike with a Bible. You do not wear high heels and carry an umbrella and say ‘1992 was under apartheid, 2007 is under ANC’. You won’t win a strike like that.” 21 The use of violence during industrial action affects not only the strikers or picketers, the employer and his or her business but it also affects innocent members of the public, non-striking employees, the environment and the economy at large. In addition, striking workers visit non-striking workers’ homes, often at night, threaten them and in some cases, assault or even murder workers who are acting as replacement labour. 22 This points to the fact that for many workers and their families’ living conditions remain unsafe and vulnerable to damage due to violence. In Security Services Employers Organisation v SA Transport and Allied Workers Union (SATAWU),23 it was reported that about 20 people were thrown out of moving trains in the Gauteng province; most of them were security guards who were not on strike and who were believed to be targeted by their striking colleagues. Two of them died, while others were admitted to hospitals with serious injuries.24 In SA Chemical Catering and Allied Workers Union v Check One (Pty) Ltd,25 striking employees were carrying various weapons ranging from sticks, pipes, planks and bottles. One of the strikers Mr Nqoko was alleged to have threatened to cut the throats of those employees who had been brought from other branches of the employer’s business to help in the branch where employees were on strike. Such conduct was held not to be in line with good conduct of striking.26 These examples from case law show that South Africa is facing a problem that is affecting not only the industrial relations’ sector but also the economy at large. For example, in 2012, during a strike by workers employed by Lonmin in Marikana, the then-new union Association of Mine and Construction Workers Union (AMCU) wanted to exert its presence after it appeared that many workers were not happy with the way the majority union, National Union of Mine Workers (NUM), handled negotiations with the employer (Lonmin Mine). AMCU went on an unprotected strike which was violent and resulted in the loss of lives, damage to property and negative economic consequences including a weakened currency, reduced global investment, declining productivity, and increase unemployment in the affected sectors.27 Further, the unreasonably long time it takes for strikes to get resolved in the Republic has a negative effect on the business of the employer, the economy and employment. 3 1 Effects of violent and long strikes on the economy Generally, South Africa’s economy is on a downward scale. First, it fails to create employment opportunities for its people. The recent statistics on unemployment levels indicate that unemployment has increased from 26.5 to 27.2. 28 The most prominent strike which nearly brought the platinum industries to its knees was the strike convened by AMCU in 2014. The strike started on 23 January 2014 and ended on 24 June 2014. It affected the three big platinum producers in the Republic, which are the Anglo American Platinum, Lonmin Plc and Impala Platinum. It was the longest strike since the dawn of democracy in 1994. As a result of this strike, the platinum industries lost billions of rands.29 According to the report by Economic Research Southern Africa, the platinum group metals industry is South Africa’s second-largest export earner behind gold and contributes just over 2 of the country’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP).30 The overall metal ores in the mining industry which include platinum sells about 70 of its output to the export market while sales to local manufacturers of basic metals, fabricated metal products and various other metal equipment and machinery make up to 20. 31 The research indicates that the overall impact of the strike in 2014 was driven by a reduction in productive capital in the mining sector, accompanied by a decrease in labour available to the economy. This resulted in a sharp increase in the price of the output by 5.8 with a GDP declined by 0.72 and 0.78.32 Links
None of their cards make any attempt to say they solve all of income inequality. No brink for how much income inequality they actually have to solve for to avoid this extinction scenario- reducing inequality isn’t enough
Solvency
Working society incrases climate change—turns case