Author: Matt Liu, University of Wyoming director of debate The LD resolution for the NSDA national championship is: Resolved: The intergenerational accumulation of wealth is antithetical to democracy. This is a great topic, with a twist. The ethics of intergenerational accumulation of wealth have long been debated by philosophers. In 1960 Friedrich Hayek argued in The Constitution of Liberty: “Once we agree that it is desirable to harness the natural instincts of parents to equip the new generation as well as they can, there seems no sensible ground for limiting this to non-material benefits. The family’s function of passing on standards and traditions is closely tied up with the possibility of transmitting material goods. And it is difficult to see how it would serve the true interest of society to limit the gain in material conditions to one generation.” In Justice as Fairness John Rawls disagreed, stating: “If we ignore the inequalities in people’s prospects in life arising from these contingencies and let those inequalities work themselves out while failing to institute the regulations necessary to preserve background justice, we would not be taking seriously the idea of society as a fair system of co-operation between citizens as free and equal.” However, it is important to note this topic is not intergenerational accumulation of wealth good/bad. It’s also not inheritance or estate taxes good/bad (a practical way to discuss change vis-à-vis the topic). The topic is whether intergenerational accumulation of wealth is opposed to or incompatible with democracy. Keeping your arguments tightly bound to that relationship will be key to winning rounds. This article is our off-the-cuff reactions to the topic: our first take. Our hope is to have a follow-up pending a new announcement, but more on that later… For now, check out our 7 quick tips for debating intergenerational wealth and democracy below the fold. 1. Definitions May Be More Important Than Usual Along with the value/criterion debate, definitions are often where I think debaters spend their time the least efficiently. However, on this topic, the precise definition of what constitutes a democracy may be essential to winning the day. For example, if democracy is just “one person, one vote” it will be hard to be aff. While intergenerational accumulation of wealth can obviously create economic inequality, it is hard to argue it takes away someone’s vote (especially when someone could vote for wealth redistribution, but chooses not to). From an empirical perspective, the countries most universally considered to be democracies also embrace intergenerational accumulation of wealth. Consider this argument by political scientists Scheve and Stasavage: “Wealth inequality tends to evolve slowly over time. Therefore, if we want to understand its determinants, we should consider long-run evidence. ... In about 1860, levels of wealth inequality in New York, Boston, and Philadelphia matched or exceeded those in Buenos Aires and Rio de Janeiro. In spite of this, the United States continued on its democratic trajectory while Argentina and Brazil did not.” Although one can spin empirics in both directions, the data is pretty good for the neg. How exactly intergenerational accumulation of wealth and democracy relate will turn on exactly what democracy means. 2. Research Tip: Expand to Your Searches to Include Income/Wealth Inequality & Democracy While wealth inequality and intergenerational accumulation of wealth are not the same, far more is written about the former vis-à-vis democracy. This will give you the occasional good card, but more important, it will give you a goldmine of ideas for winning arguments and search terms. 3. Debating on the Aff: Inequality, Fairness, and Democracy There is a fairly straight-forward but powerful case for the aff that justice purchased is justice denied. Well-written scholarly articles that intergenerational accumulation of wealth has turned the US into an oligarchy are a dime a dozen. There is no equal opportunity when someone is born to millions and another is born to poverty. Ngaire Woods, dean of the Blavatnik School of Government at the University of Oxford, calls this a fundamental risk to democracy, stating “If people can’t aspire to succeed within the system, they will aspire … outside the system, in ways that break the system.” Great quote, but you should also chase the peer-reviewed, scholarly literature that makes more careful distinctions between democracy and oligarchy. John Stuart Mill advocated sharply limiting inheritances because “accidents of birth” have no normative place in the liberal social order. Lily Batchelder avers that addressing intergenerational accumulation of wealth is “essential for democracy in that it reduces concentrations of power in family dynasties.” FDR maintained that “inherited economic power is as inconsistent with the ideals of this generation as inherited political power was inconsistent with the ideals of the generation which established our Government.” Thomas Nagel makes a more nuanced argument about class stratification and the ethos and norms of democracy, contending: “A dynastic system that is allowed simply to float free of societal control is not merely a form of economic inequality, but a form of exemption of members of the privileged class from the minimal conditions of social solidarity. Like racial caste and sexual domination, hereditary class stratification is likely to generate mentalities of felt superiority and inferiority that are harmful in themselves. A democratic ethos is harder to sustain in the face of inequalities that are evident from earliest childhood, and in the intergenerational memory of one's parents and grandparents-inequalities that seem to be built into the nature of things so that they become forms of entitlement.” All this to say if you shake the internet tree, aff cards will fall off the branches. Given that, we’ll concentrate our more creative takes on the neg, exploring some good arguments you should make and some arguments you're likely to hear (but maybe shouldn't make). 4. The Best Negative Argument Focuses on Democracy, Not Wealth Inequality The strength of the affirmative on this topic is that the intergenerational accumulation of wealth absolutely, unequivocally, creates an unfair society. The weakness is that every democracy in history has placed no to weak limits on intergenerational accumulation of wealth. This is a powerful negative argument, but ultimately a defensive one. It can be made more powerful by critiquing the impulse to call everything that is bad anti-democratic. This is my favorite and best take on this topic: that the conflation of problematic things with being anti-democratic misdiagnoses the problem in a way that makes it harder to fix the very structures the aff critiques. It mystifies or obscures the real problem, and leads us to focus on the wrong things as we try to fix it. You can agree intergenerational accumulation of wealth is bad, but critique the focus on it being "anti-democratic." The idea is that democracies often choose to do bad thing. Democracies chose to engage in the slave trade. A democracy chose to implement Jim Crow segregation policies. A democracy chose to put the Japanese in internment camps during WWII. Not everything evil happens because the will of the majority is denied. Often times, the majority chooses to do evil things. Implying the problem is a lack of democracy misdiagnoses the problem, and confuses the mechanisms of power at play. It requires very different strategies to contest a problematic policy in a democracy than it does in an authoritarian regime. You wouldn’t contest an unethical policy adopted by the GOP in the same way you would an unethical policy of the Assad regime in Syria. Conflating the two is poor scholarship, and is likely to produce poor solutions. This card was cut on the LD military assistance to authoritarian regimes topic against the Israel aff (pre-round, we lost the flip so it’s never been read). I’m sure better evidence exists, but it gets at the idea pretty well. Enjoy the freebie (and comment on the article if you'd like the card in a word doc instead of a jpeg): Of course, all of these arguments couple excellently with the defensive argument that the problem with intergenerational accumulation of wealth is not that it is anti-democratic, but that it foments income inequality.
5. Intergenerational Accumulation of Wealth is not Anti-Democratic if People Prefer It I’ve beat around the bush about this argument already, but an essential negative argument is about choice. If the people prefer to allow intergenerational accumulation of wealth, than how can it be anti-democratic? This argument is proffered by Scheve and Stasavage, two political science professors writing in the Annual Review of Political Science. They contend that “some voters without wealth may feel that redistribution is unfair.” Evidence for this might be found in the disdain for the estate tax. There are a lot of reasons why the masses may prefer to allow intergenerational accumulation of wealth. Everyone believes that one day they’ll have the nice house with the white picket fence, and they want to pass that off to their kids (even if they don’t have it now, and likely won’t have it later). Think of the American dream like the Sorting Hat at Hogwarts: what you want matters more than anything else. If people are choosing intergenerational accumulation of wealth over a redistributive alternative, even if it’s irrational, it can’t be anti-democratic. There’s also surely going to be an argument about autonomy made: that the right “to devote one's resources to one's family and those one loves, in life and in death” is a personal choice not to be abridged by government or others. On a similar note, I’m sure some folks will read straight-up libertarianism. 6. Intergenerational Accumulation of Wealth is Just Starting to Benefit Minorities (allegedly) I’m not sure I’m on board with this argument. It’s definitely advanced by conservative think tanks like the Heritage Foundation, although likely in bad faith (that’s not to say that every Heritage article is useless, I suspect this one will have a lot of viable negative arguments). The best iteration of this argument goes something like this: taking a stance against intergenerational accumulation of wealth now, when minorities are just starting to amass wealth, is unethical. Just as the largest wave of Black millionaires is about to pass on their wealth to their children, now is the time you want to critique intergenerational accumulation of wealth? You would of course need to bring this back to an argument about democracy, which is not terribly difficult to do through an argument about political equality. Again, I’m not sure I’m in love with this argument – in fact I think this might be a better aff contention because so much evidence on this question goes aff – but I am sure you’ll hear it. 7. Shift is a Potential Negative Argument One of the reasons Hayek opposed any corrective to the intergenerational accumulation of wealth is he feared what might replace it would be worse (nepotism, cronyism). He wrote that people “would look for other ways of providing for their children, such as placing them in positions which might bring them the income and the prestige that a fortune would have done; and this would cause a waste of resources and an injustice much greater than is caused by the inheritance of property.” Hayek isn’t the only one to have this thought. Milton Friedman has made a similar argument that attempts to equalize material inheritances would result in a shift to more nefarious forms of discrimination. Is this a winner? I'm not committed to it, but I'd definitely have a block to answer it. I hope those starter thoughts help! Best of luck with your NSDA prep. We want to hear from you! Disagree with something we said? Have a question? Feel free to jump in in the comments, we'll be sure to respond! Do you have a topic you’d like us to address in a future post? Email us at [email protected] Go Pokes!
3 Comments
Stephanie Cozzens
5/5/2020 10:08:17 am
This is awesome - thanks!
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Qian
7/29/2020 10:20:27 pm
thank you!
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Anthony
12/1/2020 09:53:56 am
OH YEAH
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