The topic for this debate is "Stealing is sometimes a justifiable defense of liberty in response to oppressive price gouging".

Memoryshock will be arguing the pro position and will open the debate.
Semperfortis will argue the con position.

Each debater will have one opening statement each. This will be followed by 3 alternating replies each. There will then be one closing statement each and no rebuttal.


Character limits are nolonger in effect- you may use as many characters as a single post allows.

Editing is strictly forbidden. This means any editing, for any reason. Any edited posts will be completely deleted. This prevents cheating. If you make an honest mistake which needs fixing, you must U2U me. I will do a limited amount of editing for good cause. Please use spell check before you post.

Opening and closing statements must not contain any images, and must have no more than 3 references. Excluding both the opening and closing statements, only two images and no more than 5 references can be included for each post.

Responses should be made within 49 hours, if people are late with their replies, they run the risk of forfeiting their reply and possibly the debate. Limited grace periods may be allowed if I am notified in advance.

This is a Title Challenge match. The winner will recieve two ranking points, the loser will lose 2 ranking points. The ATS Debate Championship is on the line.

Judging will be conducted by a pannel of annonymous judges. Their decision is final. Stars will have no affect on the outcome of this debate, but are still encouraged.

[edit on 31-12-2007 by The Vagabond]

[edit on 5-1-2008 by The Vagabond]

I would like to thank semperfortis for the opportunity to face off on the eminent battlefield that is the ATS debate forum as well as The Vagabond for his assistance in defining the parameters for this debate.

I will begin with a story.

Thomas has been struggling for years to keep his family and home financially secure, much less living large and whimsically. Years of arduous work at more than one job, not always the same places of employment, have left him with barely enough money to pay the rent, to keep a continuous flow of food on the table, to allow for new clothing on the back of his two children, as well as a modicum of luxury. There is no cable, the utilities have been shut off at times but the years have been kind in that Thomas was able to keep his family together and housed. Anne, his wife, had taken on a part-time job herself to help out with expenses and allow for her own small luxuries, as well as to keep her time with the children.
Then disaster strikes. A hurricane ravages the region, destroying not only homes and the economic structure, but lives and families. What was once a bustling cultural epicenter is reduced to nothing resembling a self sustaining metropolis. Help arrives slowly and tentatively. Lives need to be fixed…but what happens in the interim, before a depraved society can be helped? Thomas must negotiate not only with his morality and his faith in a temporarily bumbling government but, and more importantly for the safety and containment of his family, the many humans running around in his immediate environment who lack any compunction to even consider that morality is still a relevant concern in a time of crisis…Thomas may need to steal to secure enough food while waiting for shelters to be set up, or the delivery of provisions to a pre-established shelter.

Thomas’ need to take care of his family supersedes the morality of a smoothly functioning society in the aftermath of a major catastrophe. Period. End of Story.


People assert themselves in various ways. Some people need more help then others, while still more people find themselves in a position to take advantage of others. This is a generalized fact that is born out in every social situation.

In a devastated environment, it’s not just homes and utilities that are out of commission, but law enforcement is relegated to crowd control and various other humane concerns; sand bagging, medical treatment and assistance. There is little capacity to identify and incarcerate the various small time criminals during the after math of a major disaster. Looters have more or less a free for all and there are businesses that have the capacity to take advantage of the honest consumer. As a result, the honest man is not only at higher risk for bodily injury but has an increased exposure to individuals who will take financial advantage of the honest man’s need for survival. To survive is the name of the game in the face of a catastrophe. To allow the usual inclination for morality to affect one’s judgment when the individual goal is to eat a meal at the expense of a neighbors’ opportunistic entrepreneurial instincts is not a situation where I would personally judge, much less condemn a human for ‘stealing’….

It is an imposition of the liberty of others, much less the survival capacity of others, to deny a service or good that is required by an individual in a survival situation due to a selfish adherence to personal economic concerns. If such a gross neglect of the social responsibility for others occurs when all people should be reaching a hand to lift everyone back into the standard of life they were at, than who is to say that a response in kind is not justified? The social contract has been broken when a business man, temporary or permanent, has engaged in price gouging; an implicit contract that has been the foundation for our society and others. The social contract no longer applies to the guilty profiteer.

Price Gouging is not cooperation. It is selfish and counter-productive.

I would like to point out that there is an implicit support of my position by the very fact that there are laws against price gouging. These laws were undoubtedly legislated to protect the liberties of its respective citizens, to protect the right of an individual to expect fair treatment…especially when it is needed, not in spite of it. An economy that is constantly fluctuating to ambiguity in times of relative normalcy needs to remain accessible in times of extreme uncertainty…because if the citizen can’t expect consistency from his/her social, moral, and economic authority, then how can the citizen be expected to act in compliance? The need for survival trumps the societal luxury of common sense. Which is why we would have price gougers in the first place. Which is why we have looters. Which is why we have short term unpredictability in the behaviour of otherwise compliant citizens.

But unexpected circumstances arise all the time. Who could have predicted a year prior, the devastation that befell New Orleans when Hurricane Katrina ravaged through in the summer of 2005? How can one expect to plan ahead for the loss of employment and home when one is barely keeping up with the rent and a full cupboard of food?
Not everyone can afford to be financially prepared for a situation that has eliminated house and home, convenient access for food and has impacted the fluid capability of most civic institutions, including the security provided by law enforcement.

Price gougers are implicitly impinging upon the liberties of their common man, the common man who has planned for periods of normalcy and who is caught off guard by the selfish desire of an opportunistic entrepreneur in a period of heightened agitation. The world is not fair. The economic structure of our nation and world has created levels of inequality in many areas of life that are only getting worse. But times of emergency are different. That is where an upper middle class individual in Rolling Hills may find the need to assist a social worker from Inglewood in the aftermath of a huge Southern California earthquake. The diverse county of Los Angeles contains the above cities less than two miles from each other and, as a result, both economic classes will find their environment impacted in the case of a major catastrophe. Cooperation is required to repair the lives of the community…not the opportunistic businessman.

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"Stealing is sometimes a justifiable defense of liberty in response to oppressive price gouging.”


Yes. Absolutely yes. In a democratic society that is offset and at times completely overshadowed by the capitalistic reality of our world, stealing can be said to not only be justified in certain situations, but a necessitated response to a survival situation

To illustrate my position, I am prepared to present the economic reasons that have created not only a varied financial status amongst the individuals of our nation (a regional variant throughout the free world) but an educational difference as well. The difference in economic and educational capacity/resource between our lower, middle, and upper classes are important to visualize what would motivate someone to take advantage of a fellow citizen. The current day to day reality of our economic/social state is an important foundation to understand what happens when our society experiences extreme fluctuations…the sociology of our society responds to the economic and social changes inherent of a capitalistic world. I am also prepared to demonstrate that price gouging can occur outside of a national emergency, and that the professional neglect of economic trend can potentially effect other aspects of our economy, creating unnecessary hardship.

I am also prepared to cite sociological theory to demonstrate that human behaviour is such that morality can be easily rationalized or even forgotten in certain situations. Indeed, controlled experiments that I will utilize as foundation will show that non-survival situations have resulted in gross discrepancies between the actions of an individual and unwaverable societal norms/mores. The breakdown of personal morality; indeed the assumed morality; is not justifiable in these situations when brought under the scrutiny of a communal perspective. But we will find contrast that will showcase the variety of motivations people may have for certain actions. Behaviour can not be static and as a result, the opinions we have for the behaviour of others can not be based on black and white assesments. We cannot assume that we know the reasoning process behind every individual, and likewise, we cannot attribute a moral condemnation to a man or woman who was forced by natural instinct to survive to take without proper payment a good or contextual service.

Taken on a case by case basis, there is no doubt that a situation would occur where stealing is a justifiable defense of a liberty that is being compromised by a selfish price gouger.

Title Debate

"Stealing is sometimes a justifiable defense of liberty in response to oppressive price gouging".

Semper’s Reply #3

I would like to start off here initially with a few points of interest in my opponent’s last post.

Semporfortis is still attempting to make this debate about price gouging alone. We are indeed referencing, per the debate topic, an oppressive example of said price manipulation.

I’m sorry if I offended your verbiage here. As it was you who started with the catastrophe scenario and continue in that vein, it was my presumption that ANY price gouging during such an event would by definition be oppressive.

Please if you would, define what form of price gouging is NOT oppressive during such catastrophes as you seem stuck on?

I have clearly established that your hero, or anyone for that matter, will steal to survive, thereby negating your scenario completely.
I have also established that if they are only stealing due to the price gouging element, they are merely criminals and not defending Liberty or anything else for that matter.

All clearly “As Per The Debate Topic”

His example that Thomas would steal even in response to Joe having lowered his prices is immaterial for two reasons…

You could just answer the question. Please…

“If Thomas NEEDS what is in Joe’s Store, and Joe has lowed his prices, WOULD THOMAS STEAL WHAT HE NEEDS?”

The price of a good or service may be necessary for an individual to keep enough gas in the vehicle so as to insure the retention of his/her job, which in turn supplies the individual(s) with food and money to apply towards other aspects of the human condition.

Following that line of thinking answer me this.

If the world is caught in an Apocalypse scenario, I WILL NEED a large 4 wheel drive vehicle, say a Hummer, to ensure the safety of my family. Using your analogy, I should be JUSTIFIED in stealing it now and keeping it so that it is available when needed. Just to satisfy that aspect of my human condition of course. And due to an economic disparity.

Don’t you understand that Society, just like your fantasy scenarios, needs limitations and controls to ensure the individual does not take it upon themselves to redefine the law? Stealing can never be in defense of liberty in relation to price gouging oppressive or not.

Simple and Factual.

Stealing is sometimes a justifiable defense of liberty in response to oppressive price gouging.

The above statement, which is the debate topic, cannot be answered with a simple ‘yes’ or ‘no’.

Why not?

I just have and will again. The answer is NO

If morality is a black and white constant, then the reaction of people to the constant will undoubtedly be different for whatever reasons are defined by circumstance.

We are not discussing morality. We are discussing whether or not stealing is a defense of liberty in response to oppressive price gouging.

Prostitution is an illegal action, just like stealing. The morality is in question depending upon whom you ask.
Illegal Gambling
Private use of narcotics
ETC

Just like the stealing in the debate topic, they are all illegal but morally questionable. We are not debating the morality of stealing during a crisis. If you wish to, we can debate that at a later date.

we should understand that the right thing for a Hindu is going to be different than the right thing for an average McDonald’s patron.

PLEASE can we stick to the debate topic.

Whether it is “The Right Thing” in whatever religion you choose has no relevance to whether or not it is a “Defense of Liberty” as the debate topic states.

Semperfortis is attempting to construe the use of the term liberty in the definition I provided, by suggesting, “no restrictions”. As well as in other instances…

I am not construing anything. It is directly from the definition YOU chose to relate your instance to. Remember?

3. freedom from control, interference, obligation, restriction, hampering conditions, [snip] my emphasis

You will kindly note your inclusion of “my emphasis” that indicates this is YOUR own quote.

The aforementioned vehicle would be taken because I would have needed the escape in a faster time than would have occurred while I argued about the unfair increase in price.

So! In your OWN WORDS your stealing the vehicle, NOT IN DEFENSE OF LIBERTY, but so that you may “GO FASTER”.

So you agree with my premise that stealing does not defend liberty in this instance as per the debate topic. OUTSTANDING, thank you.

Originally posted by semporfortis
What other illegal actions would you justify due to obvious discrepancies of equality?

Truly, an irrelevant question. That is my answer to this question.

How can you say it is irrelevant? If you are justifying theft due to economic discrepancies, why would you stop there? Once that is accepted as the norm, why not branch out and if a man walks by you that has a lot more money than you, that’s not fair, why not Rob him? Just justify it due to economic discrepancies.

As ridiculous as that may sound, where do you draw the line? When you start allowing individuals to make decisions as to whether or not to obey the law, and accepting that as a “norm”, you will have every law tested in this regard. Where do you stop?

No, I was not saying that, nor was I implying it. If the store owners had been fair, Thomas would have paid the fair price and we would have a scenario where everyone is happy. But that is not the debate topic.

OH! So Thomas DID steal simply in response to price gouging and NOT IN DEFENSE OF LIBERTY?

Glad you cleared that up.
As the Debate Title you are defending states quite clearly “Stealing is sometimes a justifiable defense of liberty”, not “Stealing is OK in response to price gouging.”


Well it would appear that my opponent has helped to prove my side of the debate quite well without my assistance, I will however muddle on.

Let’s break this down by the numbers.

1. Thomas needs something in order to survive and does not have the money for it because the store has raised their prices, so he steals it.

*Is this in Defense of Liberty?* Of course not (He stole to survive)

2. Thomas WANTS something, has the money for it, but decides to teach the store owner a lesson because he raised his prices, so he steals it.

*Is this in Defense of Liberty?* Of course not (He has no authority or right to “teach” anyone a lesson, he committed a crime)

See my opponent would have you believe his actions are defensible and justified, yet would not Thomas also steal that thing if the store owner had lowered his prices and Thomas still did not have the money? Is that in Defense of Liberty. Again OF COURSE NOT



The act of stealing can of course be justified and defensible in any scenario in which to NOT steal would cause death. Yet this is not the scenario we are presented with.

We must determine if “Stealing is a defense of Liberty in response to oppressive price gouging”

It is not.

If we allow the individual to determine what society can consider is correct or incorrect behavior, and empower that individual to, in essence, punish the retailer by allowing him to steal or loot, we will have created chaos.

"Stealing is sometimes a justifiable defense of liberty in response to oppressive price gouging".

No it is not.

Remember that it is the function of society to punish those that would price gouge in an emergency, not the individual. The very presence of Price Gouging” legislation removes from the individual the “right” or “obligation” to enforce this action.

This is not defense of liberty, it is a criminal action.

Thank you

Semper

It's been an extremely close and entertaining debate. The winner, by split decision of 2-1 is Semperfortis. One of our judges gave the most lengthy verdict I've ever seen, and I think that the closeness of this debate warrants posting it in full:

The first two posts were more or less evenly matched. Memoryshock wasn't as concise or crystal-clear as I would have liked, and Semperfortis contradicted himself a few times (such as using the uniformity of law as a test, then saying the government is not his moral guide) but all in all both sides made valid points.

Memoryshock started to gain ground with his next post. The fact that the American Revolution was prompted in part by economic oppression, though neither gouging nor stealing was really the issue, did come across as a valid moral precedent for illegal activity in response to unfair economic activities. He also defeated Semperfortis attempt to separate survival and gouging by pointing out that gouging can be a barrier to survival in emergencies. Again i wish he'd been more to the point about it, but the car/flood example nailed it down reasonably well.

Semperfortis attempt at rebuttal in the hypothetical story of Thomas falls short. Yes, the motive for theft is survival, but the only reason that theft is necessary to survival is that gouging makes purchase impossible. Therefore crimes of necessity can be precipitated by gouging. Semperfortis did raise two important points however. He kept the question of survival versus gouging open by asking if theft from a non-gouging establishment. It wasn't enough to win the point exactly, but it did demand an answer, and it fed into another important question he raised: What increase constitutes a gouging price? Charging 5 bucks for a meal in America is normal. Charing the same amount in Mexico would probably be gouging. So does gouging depend somewhat on who the consumer is? Although this post didn't carry any point of argument to victory, it left a lot of questions that Memoryshock had to in some way touch on to give the affirmative position a coherent moral structure. On a somewhat less important note, by using socialism as a synonym for unfairness semperfortis limited his appeal somewhat. Communism might be dead, but socialism is widely practiced and is considered good policy in some instances by some people.

Memoryshock cleared up a bit in his next post, and made me feel a lot more comfortable with my finding on the relationship between survival and gouging, which the questions semper opened in his previous post did make me question a little bit. Using Semper's own link against him was pretty effective. He also did a good job of defending the general relevance of his revolutionary point, which did at first glance seem a bit tenuous. He didn't get into the really deep considerations implied by Semper's previous post though. He did choose a legal definition of gouging, in answer to Semper's second question raised in the previous post so I decided to have a look at how helpful the definition was. If we assume that a person was getting by before the disaster arose, then we can assume that gouging laws forcing prices to conforum to the recent average would preclde the need to steal to survive (thus defeating the first question semper raised). This however would break down in a disaster which was prolonged and/or substantially changed supply and demand, in which case what is legally defined as gouging by the law Memoryshock cited would seem to be a legitimate market price, thus making anti-gouging laws seem like an imposition on the vendor's well-being for the sake of the consumer's. Hitting this point would make the socialism argument more relevant and tie Semper's position together nicely, so In the next post from Semper I was looking for the effects of a disaster on supply and demand. In addition to leaving himself vulnerable to that angle, Memoryshock didn't do himself any favors by failing to explicitly qualify the definition of liberty within any societal bounds. Social contract theory had already been aluded to and this point really begged for some elaboration on that. Semperfortis was allowed to seize the initiative on that point. A big part of what he needed was a discussion of natural rights- I was inclined to agree with Memoryshock's side because I can see several ways in which constitionally guaranteed rights could have be claimed as threatened by gouging, but Memoryshock didn't really enumerate them or make the indepth argument to separate his position from anarchist concepts of absolute liberty.

Semperfortis started his next post with a valid and fairly obvious argument that liberty is necessarily limited in order for us to have a functioning society. This left two camps to fall into: Using the law as a guide to the limits of our liberty (which would be extremely damaging to Memoryshock's position if semperfortis could make it stick) or else working from a looser sense of how much of our liberty we are allowed to retain within the spirit of our society's laws. Unfortunately for semperfortis, his own admission that he would steal to survive suggests that we are using a generalized sense of liberty and not one defined strictly by law. That robbed him of a chance to land a crushing blow. Nevertheless he really nailed the liberty point, and made it vital. I was beginning to lean in Semperfortis' favor for the first time in the debate, thinking that if Memoryshock couldn't very explicitly counter the "theft as a defense of liberty argument" it was all over. I disagreed with Semper, and I felt his argument could be countered, but if the counter didn't actually come, or wasn't well executed, that would bode very ill for Memoryshock. The critical point was really summed up by this quote

If a person can’t get food, water, shelter material, because the prices are too high. Then I say steal it. But that does not justify Liberty in any way!

This first sentence all but admitted that pricing can be decisive in whether or not one must steal to survive, and thus that pricing can be decisive in the justification of theft, but the second sentence made justification by gouging a moot point unless Memoryshock could really articulate the point that it would constitute a defense of liberty by enumerating some liberty that is infringed by gouging and demonstrating that said liberty is guaranteed in our society.

Memoryshock undermined his own definition of gouging in his next post. Also moving into moral relativism late in the debate, when a social rather than moral guide to justification seemed to be indicated by the previous discussion, was also not terribly helpful. Backing down from the question on what other crimes he would endorse in the name of equality was also a mistake. My answer would have been that when liberty is threatened in a manner contrary to the spirit of our social contract, that the least amount of force which suffices to end that oppression is justified, regardless of law, and I would have cited the balance between justifiable homicide and concept of excessive force as support. Memoryshock pretty much got routed in this round.

Semperfortis' post in this round was significant primarily in that he kept his salient points alive, which brought attention to Memoryshock's failure to enumerate the liberties being defended and show their place within the limited liberties that we retain under the social contract.

The closing statements were pretty much a repeat of previously raised points, and I won't comment exhaustively on them.

In the end, this debate was pretty even. I'd call round 1 essentially a draw, Round 2 a win for Memoryshock, Round 3 a draw but one in which I was somewhat favoring Memoryshock, Round 4 a win for Semperfortis, and Round 5 a draw in which I was favoring Semperfortis. It really was almost a dead heat, with both sides making some good points and both sides making a few questionable decisions. I came in leaning towards the affirmative positon, and I came out with a more nuanced opinion that favors Semperfortis' position slightly more than my initial position did, even though Semperfortis was not able to fully win me over.

Ideally there'd be a 3rd verdict: Rematch, but since there isn't I guess my vote goes to Semperfortis, very narrowly.

I would like to "Take My Hat Off" to memoryshock for this debate.

Memoryshock almost convinced me with his argument.

Thank you for a great debate...

Semper